To Be Alone With You
by I'veGotAnotherConfessionToMake
Summary: Have I ever told you how wonderfully delicious your blood smells? She didn't say anything she didn't move as he stepped out into the light. He was like a beacon, but to what she was unsure. Forgive me, Love. was all he said before he pounced.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N Okay… I'm tired of all the clichéd bits of the Hermione and Draco stories. This is supposed to be only Romance/Angst with the romance being the hate romance, but for real. This won't take away from my other novel _More Than a Feeling_. You know the drill, R&R. Oh, and it really is greatly appreciated when you review, so PLEASE. DO. IT!**

Chapter One: I Hate You

"I still hate you," She whispered, stepping away from the wall and smoothing her bushy hair.

"I don't doubt it," He said, wiping a hand down his shirt, smoothing out the creases. Quickly dragging his fingers across his lips, he wiped away her taste. "I hate you too, Muddy."

"Why do you always call me that?" She asked, stepping away from the closet door, she had been nearing in a attempt to just leave. At the back of her mind, she could feel the beginnings of a migraine. Placing her hands on her hips she turned to him and glared at his pointed face. "Can't you ever get a new name?"

"Now, now," He said, sending a smoldering glare her way. "If I did that it might insinuate that I like you. We defiantly cannot have that, now can we, Granger?"

Hermione Granger didn't answer. Not right away at least. She crossed her arms and leaned her weight on her left leg. "What are we doing here?" Hermione bit her lower lip, training it between her bottom and lower rows of teeth. Her eyebrows furrowed together in a worried gaze. He absolutely abhorred that gaze.

"I asked myself that yesterday," Draco deadpanned hands in his pockets.

"I'm being serious here, Malfoy!" Hermione said shoving his shoulders angrily. He shoved her back, his grey eyes intense.

"Don't shove me!" Malfoy said, his voice low. He pressed her against the door, crushing her frame with his own. Hermione Granger was tall, taller than most women, at 5'8''. She was slim, but she was anything close to anorexic. She was at a very healthy weight, thank you very much. Draco and Hermione matched eye level almost perfectly. He was 6 foot even. But he was muscular; vain he was until his dying day. "I'm still bigger than you. I still have the power. I'm still the bigger entity in this 'relationship'." He sneered the word relationship like it was a curse coming off his pale pink lips.

Hermione turned her head away as he attempted to kiss her. "You really disgust me sometimes, you know that?"

Draco smiled a smirk, if that were even possible. Hermione sighed and tried to push him away. "You've already had your fill for one day, right?"

"Maybe," Draco said, leaning down and kissing her neck. His lips felt cold and burning on her skin. He pulled away slightly, staring at her white skin exposed at the top of her dress shirt. On second thought he added, "Maybe not."

"Merlin," Hermione said as Draco latched his lips to her neck. The smell of her faint perfume, Gardenia, infused his senses. It was the only thing about her he really liked. Hermione's perfume reminded him of his first love, his true love, his only love. Hermione let him do this only because it helped her be adventurous without risking her life. With Harry and Ron, their adventures somehow turned out to be more life-threatening than she was willing to put up with. Draco bit her skin, hard enough to draw blood. Hermione shoved him away, cradling a hand over the bruised skin. "What the bloody hell was that for, you asshole?"

Draco smirked again and wiped a little smear of blood from his lips. He pushed Hermione out of the way and said, "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Whatever," Hermione mumbled as he slammed the door, his retreating footsteps loud in the deserted corridor. Cursing under her breath, Hermione pulled her wand out of her robes pocket and conjured a mirror. The little suspended light in the closet blinked on and off, a slight buzzing sound with it. Holding up the mirror, Hermione pushed her bushy hair aside and wincing as her fingers brushed against the bite marks. A blood trail ran into the neck of her white oxford. "Damn," Hermione said. She said a small spell, relaxing as the bite marks closed. But the bruises that were forming became all the more prominent. Thank God for bushy hair. "Never again, I swear. Adventures shall be found elsewhere…"

Saying a quick cleaning spell, Hermione watched the blood on her collar disappear. Re-pocketing her wand, Hermione opened the closet door and stepped out, closed it behind her and took off down the hall.

"Hey, 'Mione!" a voice called to her. Hermione turned, pivoting on her heel to see Anthony Goldstein approaching from the opposite end of the corridor. Smiling, Hermione casually ran a hand through her hair, pausing at her neck and flattening her hair against her bruises gently.

"Hey, what's up?"

Anthony ambled on up and said quickly, "The head's meeting was moved. It's at eight, tonight." He glanced down at his wrist watch. "Which was ten minutes ago. I've been looking for you everywhere."

"I'm sorry," Hermione said, rubbing her forehead where she could feel the sharp, painful beginnings of a migraine. "I've just been distracted lately."

"Well, then, common," Anthony said, shifting his bag on his shoulder and starting off down the hall. Hermione followed suit, crossing her arms over her chest and holding her head high. She studied Anthony as he walked a few paces ahead of her. He was short, stocky with auburn hair. Not a very nice color on his tanned skin.

Sighing for what felt like the hundredth time, Hermione quickened her pace once she saw the stone gargoyle. There were a couple of voices down the hall and Hermione turned to see Blaise and Pansy walking with a silent Draco. The trio turned and looked, fixing one of their Slytherin glares on Hermione and Goldstein. Draco's eyes flitted down Hermione's body, though it looked more like a twitch. Pansy crossed her arms and raised her nose in the air, quickly taking Blaise's arm in her hand and turned away dragging the black-haired boy down the hall. Draco smirked and made an obscene gesture with his hands and turned away, leaving Hermione's eyes narrowed into slits and both of the two teens blushing.

"He is such a pervert," Hermione said, walking up to the stone gargoyle and muttered the password, her mood darkening as Anthony tapped his foot. The noise sounded like a bass drum being banged right next to her ears. Goldstein's foot increased tempo and then began a beat to some song only known to him. The stone gargoyle jumped to the side; the sound of its stone feet hitting the ground was enough to make Hermione cry, the noise was so loud! "God dammit, will you please stop?!"

Anthony looked in surprise at Hermione, a questioning look on his face. "Are you okay?"

His voice echoed in Hermione's ears, ringing through her eardrums. Her stomach lurched painfully and the floor tilted dangerously as she took a step forward towards the rotating staircase. Goldstein reached a hand out to steady her. Hermione let him keep her stable.

"I have a migraine," Hermione whispered, leaning into Goldstein's stocky body. "Please, don't talk very loud."

"Oh," Anthony whispered, rubbing a tentative hand down my back. "I'm sorry."

The grinding of the stone steps had never before grated on Hermione's nerves as they did at that very moment. She could hear each distinct crunch; feel each lurch and the only thing keeping her from screaming bloody murder and running away was the firm hold Goldstein had on her waist and her jaws clenched together with rigor. Nothing was going to pry her jaws apart, nothing.

The oak paneled doors carved with ornate details weren't a welcome sight. With the authenticity of the old school came the authenticity of creaky doors and hinges. As Professor Dumbledore's opened she knew then and there that his office door had to be the worst of them all. The sound was loud enough, in Hermione's mind, to break the sound barrier. Goldstein stepped cautiously into the oval room, careful to support the weak Gryffindor at all times. Professor Dumbledore stood from behind his desk when he saw the two arrivals, a look of concern on his visage.

"What's happened? Are you alright, Miss Granger?" Dumbledore's soothing voice reached her ears and Hermione had the sudden image of the Alps with an avalanche occurring because someone had yodeled too loud. God, why was everyone yelling?

"Um, Professor?" Anthony said his voice still in a whisper. Dumbledore had to lean in just to hear the boy. "Hermione has a migraine. You'll have to whisper."

Dumbledore nodded in agreement. He settled himself back behind his desk, silently offering the pair a lemon drop. Anthony took one, whilst Hermione slumped on the arm chair, her head in the palm of her hand. It was going to be a long meeting…

♥

One hour and fifteen minutes later, Hermione and Anthony Goldstein stumbled from the Headmaster's office and down the halls towards the Head's common room. Hermione's head felt light and heavy at the same time. Any bright light blinded her and made her want to puke. Anthony had gone as far as taking off his school robe and throwing it over Hermione's head so that absolutely no light came in at all. So far it had worked. Except for the time he forgot that Hermione couldn't see and accidentally led her into a wall. She had begun to cry, holding her bushy head in her hands, falling to the fetal position, though still resting on her feet. Goldstein had apologized profusely, now keeping her body so close to his own that Hermione didn't move her arms and hands for fear of hitting him in some ungodly place.

"Merlin's beard! Goldstein what the bloody hell did you do to Hermione?!" Ron Weasley's voice yelled down the hall. Anthony turned, Hermione still clutched tight to his body and the robe still covering her head. Ron came to a screeching halt. "You killed her! And now you're going to go and hide the evidence!"

Hermione could just imagine Ron pointing an accusing finger in Anthony's direction and felt the intense need to speak up before something out of control happened.

Yanking the robe from her head, with hair bushier than normal, Hermione took an unsteady step towards Ron who was flanked with a rather calm Harry. Her arms shook with fury, suppressed rage coursing through her veins. Could no one in this whole bloody school realize that she suffered from migraines? It wasn't hard to tell what one looked like!

"She has a migraine you idiot," came a slick voice to the left of them. The four students turned to only be looking straight into the eyes of Malfoy. He was leaning jauntily against the wall, a younger Slytherin girl in his grasp. Hermione's eyes narrowed. She and Draco shared a look that was indescribable.

"How do you know?" Ron said, voice raised.

"Ronald Weasley, if you do not shut your bloody mouth right now, I will do it for you!" Hermione said in a quiet, but intense whisper.

Draco smirked as did the girl. "I think that's your proof, dumbass."

Ron and Harry both knew that though they had what was considered a lasting and loving friendship, once Hermione was hurting in any way that was not magically related, there was a fire that only burned with more fervor when angered. Hermione was actually quite dangerous when on her period and other things of the like. Oh, to go back to those days when they had first started school and all had as of yet to reach puberty. Those were truly the good ole days.

Hermione spun on her heel and took off towards the head's common room. She could hear Malfoy and Ron fighting and Harry trying to keep Ron from killing Malfoy. Goldstein's robe was still clutched in her hands. She reached the portrait, which was coincidentally Sir Cadogan, said the password, Occultus Perturbatio, or Hidden Passions, and stepped into the common room. Removing her wand from her robes, she waved a hand at the windows watching them close with great pleasure. She neatly folded Anthony's robe and placed it on the couch along with a thank you note atop.

Stumbling into the bathroom, Hermione fiddled around in the dark for her migraine medication in the medicine cabinet. She took the entire bottle and went into her bedroom across the hall. She waved her wand at the window as she pulled down the covers to her bed. The curtain's closed quietly around the large paned windows as Hermione settled into her four-poster and popped the top to the migraine medication. Conjuring up a glass of water, Hermione placed the pill on her tongue followed by a large gulp of agua. She replaced the items on her bedside table.

Groaning, Hermione realized she was still dressed. With one hand, she blindly reached under the covers and pulled off her shoes and her robes. Knowing just how uncomfortable it was to fall asleep in her skirt and oxford, she quickly got rid of those too before settling in for a good night's rest.

♥

Two hours later found Hermione curled up in a ball on the lavatory floor. She had been puking for the past thirty minutes and had as of yet to be able to move enough without causing another lurch of the stomach and throwing her dinner and probably all that was left of her lunch up.

Hermione accioed a blanket and pillow from her room, knowing that she'd never make it back to bed tonight. She hadn't had a migraine this bad since third year with the time turner and all the extra classes she had taken. It must be all the stress she was under, what with being Head Girl and having to go through all her job transcripts. As of now, she had no idea what she wanted to be. Harry and Ron were most likely going to work for the ministry; Hermione just wanted to be independent. She knew that if she went to the ministry, not only would the Golden Trio follow her like a lost puppy, but turn out worse than expected. Ron and Harry were two over-protective brothers. After what happened in the Department of Mysteries fifth year, they hadn't let her out of their sights if they went to a public place. She was constantly guarded, and it bothered her. Sure, she loved Harry and Ron, but when was enough, enough? Nothing was going to happen to her. She was quite capable of defending herself. Just ask Malfoy; of anyone _he_ would know.

_Uh, Malfoy_, Hermione thought as she pulled the blanket tight around her shoulders. She was immensely grateful for the fluffy carpet next to the sinks at that moment. It acted as her second bed.

There was no way to truly and honestly describe what little of a 'relationship' she had with Malfoy. He was still a Ferret-Face; she was still a Mudblood. They taunted each other, hated each other, god she detested the very sight of him! So, no, she didn't have any other feelings besides animosity towards the Slytherin.

It was an unspoken agreement between them. Ever since they had bumped into each other in the back stacks of the Hogwarts library they had continued to 'bump' into one another to release… pent up frustrations. The first time had been passionate kisses on top of the History of Potion Making Section; the next in the dark alcove close to Ravenclaw Tower. Goldstein still wondered why Hermione had shone up with mussed hair and red, puffy lips, but she offered no explanations, and he had stopped asking.

All they were were enemies. Yeah, they snogged each others brains out, but who doesn't need a little release every once and a while? There's only so much one can take of their day-to-day lives of being good. It was healthy; it was dangerous; it was exactly what both of them needed.

At the beginning of the year a news article had circulated throughout the wizarding world of Draco Malfoy's fiancé having died. She was poisoned and Draco was proven innocent, having had broken down into actual, real tears when brought before the Wizengamot. There wasn't any physical evidence linking Draco _Malfoy_ to her death, but there was however evidence linking Narcissa and Lucius _Malfoy_ to her death. Apparently Lucius and Draco's fiancés father got into a heated argument. Lucius wanted to break off the marriage; her father didn't. So in response, Lucius drugged her tea for Narcissa while they were having a 'nice chat'. The blond woman than helped her husband compose a crime scene. Narcissa was a conspirator and accused of Murder after the Fact, charged with the accounts of not only reporting the crime but also tampering with the real crime scene. Then, the magical coroner found the poison in Draco's fiancés lungs and blood stream. It was all over for Lucius after that. He was sent immediately to Azkaban where he received the kiss. Narcissa on the other hand was sent to the Magical Woman's Correctional Facility, where she serves a full-life sentence. It was then that Draco and Hermione found each other. Draco found his dead love in Hermione; Hermione found adventure. It was a complicated interaction. But it worked for them. They met secretly in places where ever and whenever they needed to. Draco would release passions he still had built up for her and Hermione would find an escape from being, well, Hermione Granger. Still the most they ever did was kiss and maybe fondle each other but it never got out of control. He had his Slytherin whores for that dirty job. And Hermione was glad. She didn't want him in that sense.

Between encounters Hermione managed to spend time with Ron and Harry, playing dutiful friend and homework helper whenever the need arose. It was the norm.

Hermione yawned from her position on the floor and shoved all thoughts of Malfoy, Ron and Harry from her mind. All she wanted to do was sleep, and the meds she had taken were finally settling in. Securing the blanket around her, Hermione fell into a fitful dream full of blond men and vampires.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N Ok, I'm not very specific, let's just get that out there and in the open. What I meant by the whole hate being romance or whatever it was that I said, was that, Hermione and Draco may never actually "fall in love, have ten kids and live happily-ever-after." But they may fall in "love". Also, just so y'all know, this is a period piece. It's going to have chapters where Hermione and Draco are older, and others where they're still in school; like a flashback. Hope this clears up everything and warns y'all for future reference.**

**As always… R&R!**

Chapter Two: Strange Happenings

3 months later…

Hermione slung her bag over her tired shoulder and pushed her bushy hair out of her face. The library was about to close, and Madame Pince was getting impatient with the Head Girl's studious ways. Yawning loudly, Hermione pressed her tired hands against the great oak doors and stepped out of the library into the empty corridor. Stuffing her hands into her robes pockets, Hermione kept her head down as she walked towards the Head Tower. Goldstein would no doubt be pissed that she was running so late coming to their meeting. They were supposed to talk about the Graduation ball for the seventh years. Hermione sighed again and let her head fall back, her eyes closed.

Out of no where, a hand reached out and grasped her arm, pulling her into a dark, empty classroom. Hermione didn't scream out; as soon as she saw the platinum hair, she knew who it was. Malfoy.

As Malfoy latched his lips to Hermione's neck and ran his hands down her body, Hermione let her book bag fall to the ground with a loud _thud._ She pushed Malfoy away, taking in his silver eyes and the eerie look on his face.

"What was that for?" His voice was low, though it sounded different. Hermione's body felt a tingling sensation course through her nerves. In the silence, Hermione began to wish that she had just let him kiss her.

Taking a step forward, Draco ran his hands down Hermione's face lightly, traveling over her supple cheeks and then her jaw bones, and finally to her neck. Hermione's eyes fluttered closed as an odd feeling came over her body. Her brain only wanted Malfoy to keep his hands on her, to keep touching her, only with that accomplished would she be truly happy. Then she snapped out of it.

"Why are you back?"

Malfoy seemed surprised. His silver eyes glittered and his jaw tightened. "What do you mean? I thought that this was our understanding?"

"You mean, it _was_ our understanding," Hermione stepped away. Malfoy's cologne was too intoxicating; she couldn't think when she smelt it. "You haven't even been around me for the past three months! I'm not just one of your Slytherin bimbos whom you can use and discard and come back to whenever you bloody feel like it!"

"I know," Malfoy said, raising a finely arched blond brow. "Why would I use you like a bimbo? Especially when you're so much more than that."

Even though his tone was sarcastic, the simple silkiness and octave of it was enough to send Hermione up the wall with the desire to have him. It didn't matter now that she wasn't in love with him; her body wanted to be as close to his as possible. It was his voice; the silkiness of it.

But Hermione Granger was not prized on her logic for nothing. While her body told her that she needed Malfoy to keep touching her, to sustain this feeling that had overcome her, her brain told her the truth. That what this was wasn't a part of their "understanding". This was just a rebound attack. He was out of fresh meat so now he needed Hermione again. Hermione gruffly shoved him away, surprised to find that her shirt was open and that his was no where in sight.

"What the hell's your problem, Granger?" Malfoy nearly yelled, advancing on her. "No one else acted like this when I touched them!"

"Not everyone wants to be your whore, Malfoy," Hermione said, buttoning the buttons left on her shirt and grabbing her bag off the floor. She walked hurriedly over to the door, attempting to smooth out her hair as she did so. At the door she turned around to see Malfoy watching her, an odd, indescribable look upon his visage. "Oh, and don't come near me ever again."

And with that, Hermione slammed shut the door and practically ran down the hall towards her dorms. Anywhere she could go to be as far away from Malfoy as possible.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N Hey all! I'm back, for like the fourth time, and here to grace you with yet another story! I just finished _More Than a Feeling_ and am still kind of caught up in that story line, so if you see any similarities in this first chapter, I'm sorry.**

**As always, R&R mon amies!**

♥**Kelsey aka IVEGOTANOTHERCONFESSIONTOMAKE **

Chapter Three: Hello Again Love

_Three years later…_

Hermione had never given much thought throughout school as to what she couldn't be when she graduated from Hogwarts. But now, as she sat in the jam-packed editorial offices of the Daily Prophet, she felt as though this was the one thing she couldn't keep doing. There was the first thing of deadlines, which while in school had been incredibly easy to meet, were impossible what with daily life also needing to be lived. She had to go to the market and get food, she had to pay her bills, and she visited her grandmother on Saturdays, not because she wanted to, but was obligated to. There just wasn't enough time in the day, or so it seemed.

As of this very moment, Hermione had three editorials due and a piece on the Muggle/Magical relations during Quidditch season. Apparently, Muggles were beginning to grow suspicious of reasons why they couldn't access a certain place during the times of the World Cup and so on. And to make matters worse, her boss was coming towards her with a sickly sweet smile on her face; Hermione duly noted that Pansy Parkinson _never_ smiled unless it was when something terribly bad was going to happen.

"Granger, Tomlinson wants to see you, now, in his office," Pansy said, twisting her short black hair around her pointer finger. Hermione caught sight of her engagement ring once again. Merlin, would she ever stop trying to get people to notice that Draco Malfoy had _finally_ proposed to her? "Eyeing my ring, Granger? Probably the most expensive and most beautiful ring you've ever seen?" Maybe not, Hermione was sad to report to her conscious as she stood from her desk.

"Actually, I was just thinking about how your bony finger only dulled its could be beauty and made it look more like a cubic zirconium," Hermione said, slipping her heels back on and starting off down the cubicles towards Tomlinson's office.

"Say that again, Granger, and you're fired!" Pansy called to her from where she still stood outside Hermione's cubicle.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Hermione said under her breath as she turned the corner at the end of the row of cubicles and continued into the Editor-in-Chiefs offices. Phones went off less frequently in this area, and more workers lounged against door-frames or played put-put golf in their offices with their Editor of the Year mugs. She reached Greg Tomlinson's office and knocked softly. At his request, Hermione opened the door and was surprised to see Malfoy sitting in one of the plush leather chairs. She hadn't seen in him in so long.

"Ah, Hermione, so nice of you to make it," Tomlinson said, shuffling some papers and leaning back in his chair.

"You know Parkinson sir, can't wait to show off that bloody ring of hers," Hermione said softly. Tomlinson smiled slightly as Malfoy looked to the ground, a grimace apparent on his face. "So, why'd you want to see me, sir, I'm really busy, you know?"

"First I wanted to tell you that I gave all of your assignments to Parkinson and second that I'm promoting you from field reporter to editor. You'll still be doing articles, but some of a more interesting matter," Tomlinson said, sharing a quick glance with Draco who had been silent all this time. "Oh, yes, and you'll be getting a office in this hall."

Hermione was dumbfounded. A promotion, and to editor of all things? She hadn't been with the Daily Prophet for more than a year. This was unheard of! Not that she particularly cared to be honest.

"Wow, thank you, sir," Hermione said, her voice laced with awe.

"Hermione, please call me Tomlinson now."

"Yes, sir, I mean Tomlinson."

Tomlinson cleared his throat and handed Hermione a sheet of paper. She took it hesitantly and read through it quickly.

"This is your first assignment," Tomlinson said, leaning back in his buttery chair and folding his hands behind his head. "You'll be researching-"

"Vampires?" Hermione finished for him, looking up from the paper, confusion etched into her features. "But, why?"

"Mr. Malfoy would you please step outside for a moment?" Tomlinson said, placing his hands in his lap.

"Doesn't matter; I'll still be able to hear everything," Draco said as he stood from the chair none the less and left the office, closing the door rather softly. Hermione almost didn't even hear the click of the lock.

"There's been an increase in the number of vampires lately," Tomlinson said. "And the problem is that people still think that vampires only like in Romania and are affected by garlic! Mr. Malfoy is going to help you with your research, as I know for a fact that he is well researched in the area. You will meet him everyday wherever he chooses, which will probably be at his home, and will report back here before five, the end of your shift to report to me."

"But, what is the point of my article?" Hermione asked cautiously.

"To inform the public, Hermione. The same thing you always need to do in your articles," Tomlinson said. And then in a normal voice he said, "Mr. Malfoy, you can come back in."

There was a second's pause and then the door was opened revealing Malfoy. He stood awkwardly in the doorway.

"When do I start, sir?" Hermione said, forgetting to refer to Tomlinson by his name.

"Today."

♥

"Ok, so just let me get all my things together and into my new office and then we can leave."

"I'm jumping for joy already."

"You don't have to be sarcastic."

"And you don't need to- Oh, shit! Please, hide me from Pansy!"

"What, why?"

"Please, you'll regret it if you don't!"

"Is that a threat?"

"Why? Would it help if it was?"

"No."

"Right, then it's not a threat."

"Hurry, get under the desk!"

Hermione watched Draco Malfoy of all people scurry for cover under Hermione's desk. Pansy Parkinson came waddling over as Hermione reached down and picked up a box.

"Granger," Parkinson said as Hermione took her pictures of the closest shelf and began to place them in the box. "So, is it true?"

"You really need to be more specific, Parkinson, is what true?" Hermione said innocently as she placed other items into the brown box.

Pansy folded her arms. "Is it true that you've been fired?" Pansy's voice was demeaning as she uttered the words.

"No, actually the exact opposite!" Hermione said cheerfully. "I've been promoted!"

The people in the cubicles around her stopped talking. For the slightest of seconds all was abnormally quiet. And then Pansy opened her mouth.

"What?!" She screeched. Several passer-by covered their ears from the shrillness of her voice. There was a collective gasp underneath the desk followed by a soft string of curses. Hermione continued to place items in the box.

"I know, isn't it great?" Hermione gushed, placing the last of her items in the box. She shut down her computer and packed that too into the bottomless box. "I always knew it would happen, but I never thought it could happen so soon!"

Hermione picked up her box and made to leave. On second thought, she turned around and said, "Tomlinson told you that all my previous assignments are now yours right?"

Before Pansy could say anything, Hermione turned and walked back to the Editors hall of offices. There was the sound of someone stomping their foot and an angry screech followed by angry footfalls going in the opposite direction. Hermione walked into her new office and set down her box of items before taking full advantage to look around her. Outside her office was Muggle London, a welcome sight as to how Muggle things calmed her more so than magical things.

"Are you ready? I don't want to be here any more than I have to be."

Hermione whipped around to see Draco in her office, peering through the window as if afraid that at any second, Pansy would pop out of nowhere and say, "Boo!"

"Yeah, just let me get my things," Hermione said. She grabbed her coat and buttoned the buttons before grasping her bag and swinging it over her shoulder. "Where to?"

Draco peered out the window and upon seeing the sun shinning brightly through the panes said, "Somewhere shady."

"Ok…" Hermione said slowly, rocking on her heels, her hands in her coat pockets. "And that would be, where?"

Sighing, Draco extended a hand, "Let's just go to my place."

"I'm sure I can get there without your help, Malfoy," Hermione said, adjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder.

"You sure about that?"

He had a point, which was what initially made Hermione mad. She hated Malfoy, and him being right just made her hate him even more. Without saying anything, Hermione grasped Draco's outstretched hand. Hermione wasn't prepared for the feelings that overwhelmed her. She wanted to snog Draco Malfoy senseless then and there and she didn't care who saw or found out. Draco smelt so good, and his stormy eyes just looked so… inviting.

Draco apparated them to his manor. Once there, he quickly dropped Hermione's hand and took a couple of steps away. Instantly, Hermione's senses were returned to her. She blinked ferociously, looking to the marbled floor. She hiked her bag even farther up her shoulder and crossed her arms. Hermione felt stupid, and the thing she hated most next to Draco Malfoy was feeling inadequate.

"Come on, Granger," Draco said, turning on his heel and starting off at a brisk pace down the hall. Hermione followed her heels click-clacking on the marble and echoing up the vaulted ceilings overhead. Draco led the way to a immense study lined with portraits of landscapes and even some people. She recognized Waterhouse' The Lady of Shalott, and even some of Monet's work.

"You never struck me as the artful type, Malfoy." Hermione said, peering at the different portraits.

"There are many things you don't know about me, Granger," Draco said, taking a seat behind a great mahogany desk. Hermione spun on her heel slowly and walked over to the desk. She sat in the chair that Draco pointed to.

"Too true, Malfoy, too true."

**A/N Ok, so this first chapter sucked… But it got some important things out there. Now I have a reason for doing the things that I'm going to do in the next few chapters.**

**P.S.**

**Please don't flame me too bad… I really hate that…**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N Hey, here's the second chapter! Tell me what you think! And don't forget to review!**

Disclaimer: Not Mine!

Chapter Four: Interesting Touches

Hermione blinked and opened her eyes. She sighed and stretched before relaxing deep into her mattress, but try as she may, she couldn't fall asleep again. Glancing at the clock, Hermione noted that she had at least an hour before she had to be up. Yesterday when she had been to Malfoy's, they had come up with an agreement. Hermione didn't need to report to work until the end of her shift for the next month, and so consequently, she had to wait till Malfoy was ready to rise and shine. Truth be told, they hadn't accomplished much on that first day. Just a bunch of guidelines of Draco's that Hermione agreed too merely because she didn't want to argue.

Giving on the thought of ever falling back to sleep, Hermione decided to go on ahead and rise and shine. She slipped from between the covers and carefully made her bed, smoothing out all the creases and folds before going into her bathroom to shower. Quickly, Hermione washed her hair and shaved her legs with an experienced hand missing what could be a hundred nicks and cuts. Rinsing her hair for a final time, Hermione turned off the water and stepped out of her bathtub. Wrapping a towel around her body, she walked up to her mirror and wrung the excess water from her hair into the sink. She watched her reflection with trepidation. Here she was, twenty-four, with a great job, and great personality stuck doing a job with quite possibly the richest and one of the most handsome men in the world. Sighing, Hermione brushed her hair and then her teeth, having never gotten out of the habits her parents had placed on her since infancy.

As Hermione was putting some lotion on her legs, she heard a strange sound from her bedroom. Pausing in her lotionizing-routine, Hermione listened to the sounds of something or someone rustling around in her room. For a second, she thought it was Crookshanks, but another blink of the eye later and that little voice in her head reminded her that said cat had died almost three years ago. She was completely alone in her house, but for the visitor in the next room over.

Hermione stood and as quietly as she could ran over to the door leading into her closet. She closed the door to her bathroom and locked it before going over to the door that would lead out into the bedroom and locking that one as well. In record time, Hermione was dressed in a pair of jeans and a white tank top. She didn't think of a bra, as she didn't think that if someone was there to kill her, it wouldn't matter if she was wearing a clown's outfit. Either way she was dressed, she was pretty sure that the person in her room would kill her if found. Hermione searched blindly in the dark of her closet to find a weapon of any kind. In the corner next to the door leading into the bedroom, her hands grasped the handle of a cricket bat. Suddenly, she felt a whole lot better about whoever it was out there.

Just as soon as Hermione gained some courage, it was shot to pieces when whoever it was in her room came to the closet door and began to rattle the handle as though to get in. Hermione raised the bat, gripping it tightly in her sweaty hands. She shook her wet hair from her face and found that she was scared shitless. What if whoever was in her room really did want to kill her? She couldn't die! She was too young! She had a whole life ahead of her! She hadn't even met her Happily-Ever-After-Prince-Charming yet either! Plus, she had just gotten a promotion. Wouldn't it make Pansy Parkinson happy to know that the day after Hermione got her promotion she was brutally murdered in her apartment? Hermione swallowed loudly as the person in her room said something, and the lock on her closet door was opened. Hermione screamed and swung blindly with the bat, connecting with their shoulder. She hit over and over again, screaming her lungs out when whoever it was she was attacking grabbed the bat with his left hand and yelled her name.

"Hermione Granger, you bloody, crazy woman, knock it off!"

Hermione stopped screaming and opened her eyes. She wished she hadn't. Draco Malfoy stood in her bedroom, wearing all black and sporting, surprisingly only a bloody lip and bruised temple. For the second time in two days, Malfoy had succeeded in making Hermione fell stupid, however unwillingly it was.

"What- What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?!" Hermione asked, releasing the bat and crossing her arms. Draco tossed the cricket bat back into the closet where it landed with a thud on the wood floors. Hermione thought of Mrs. Jenkins in the room below her complaining about all the racket Hermione made. At least this month her accusations would be somewhat accurate. "What are you doing in my house, no, in my room?"

"I couldn't sleep and thought that we might as well get an early start. I honestly thought you'd still be sleeping," Draco said nonchalantly as he walked over to Hermione's bed and plopped onto the once smooth duvet cover. Hermione tried not to cringe. She hated it when things got messed up, especially her bed and right after she had made it.

Momentarily forgetting about her bed, Hermione rounded on Malfoy and pointed an accusing finger at him. "So you decided to come to my house, unannounced and wearing completely black making you look all the more like a burglar?"

Malfoy shrugged. He gave Hermione's body the once over, before scrunching his eyebrows as though in thought and saying, "Are you wearing a bra?"

"Get out!" Hermione screeched, yanking Malfoy up by the sleeve of his long-sleeved shirt and shoving him out the door.

"I'll take that as a no!" Draco's muffled voice called through the door. Hermione rolled her eyes and went back to her closet. She picked out a bra and quickly put it on, replacing her tank top before slipping back out into her room. Glancing at the bed, she decided she couldn't handle not fixing it and rushed over to quickly smooth out all the wrinkles Draco had placed there from having sat so unceremoniously on her bed. "Granger, stop fixing your bloody bed and get a move on already! I don't want to spend all of my day with you, you know!"

"How did he know I was fixing my bed?" Hermione whispered, staring at the door lost in thought. She was brought out of her reverie by the sound of something hitting the door.

"Granger, common..."

"Oh, stop your belly-aching." Hermione muttered.

"What was that, Love?"

"Nothing, Sweetie," Hermione said back, her voice sarcastic as she went over to her vanity and sprayed on some perfume. "Are we going somewhere?"

"Yes!" Draco called, his voice sounded distant as though maybe he had moved on down the hall to another part of the apartment.

Hermione went back to her closet and put on a deep plum retro blazer along with some leopard print ballet flats.

"Granger?!" Draco called. Hermione could tell that he was defiantly somewhere near the kitchen or living room and if he didn't stop yelling at her, Mrs. Jenkins would be calling to complain. No sooner had Hermione thought that and left her room than the telephone rang. Hermione hurried into the kitchen in time to see Draco picking up the receiver. He had a quizzical look on his face.

"Draco, no!" Hermione whispered. She made to grab the phone but Draco raised his arm into the air making Hermione have to jump to even graze the cool plastic phone with her finger-tips.

"Hello! Hello! Miss Granger! Answer Me! Hello?!" Came Mrs. Jenkins' voice from the other side. Hermione became desperate. Draco became interested. He placed the phone to his ear and calmly said, "Hello?"

Hermione stood shock-still to the linoleum kitchen floor as Draco conversed with her elderly neighbor.

"Oh, yes, is Miss Granger there?" Mrs. Jenkins yelled into the phone so loud that Draco had to hold the phone about a foot from his head to keep from blowing an eardrum.

"I'm afraid she's a little inappropriate at the moment," Draco said as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Draco!" Hermione hissed, reaching for the phone. However, Draco hadn't been a seeker for nothing. He turned out of the way, wrapping the cord about his legs. Hermione followed, leaning into him in her desperate attempt to get to the telephone.

"Inappropriate?" came Mrs. Jenkins' voice. She sounded confused. "How so? Is she in the loo? I need to speak to her."

"No," Draco said, his voice still as calm as day. "I'm afraid that she's unable to come to the phone due to a very nasty case of something most commonly called horniness which needs to be quickly revived with a good dose of shagging. Please, I'll have her call you."

And with that, Draco hung up the phone. Hermione's eyes grew wide.

"Why the bloody hell did you do that?" Hermione screeched hitting him on the chest.

Draco laughed and grasped her wrists in his hands. "Calm down! You can't say that it wasn't funny!"

"She's eighty years old!" Hermione said. "And she's my neighbor. Doesn't really matter to you because you'll probably never see her again!"

Draco laughed again and unwrapped the cord from around his legs. "You need to lighten up, Granger."

"Lighten up?" Hermione said, her arms at her sides, almost as though the phrase were foreign to her.

"Common, let's go," Draco said, pulling Hermione towards the door. "With any luck, we'll meet her in the elevator on her way down to see if what I said was true!"

"That's gross, Malfoy," Hermione said, breaking away and grabbing her purse. She went over to her work bag and took out a legal pad of paper and a pen before putting that too in her purse.

"That bag is huge," Draco said from his position by the door.

"It's not that big," Hermione said, hiking the bag on her shoulder. "Is it?" She asked a little unsure.

"You just put a pad of paper in there along with Merlin knows what else you women carry in your bags," Draco said, pulling her out of the apartment and into the hallway. Hermione caught a whiff of his cologne and almost had the same attack of nerves that she had gotten yesterday on the way to his house. "Common, I want to see if that old lady is in the lift."

"You're taking way too much pride in this Draco," Hermione said, never realizing that she had said his first name.

"Comes with the name, Hermione," Draco said back, putting special inphasis on the fact that he had said her name as well.

As they waited for the lift, both were silent. Hermione almost wished that one of them would say something, but was denied that wish. She listened to the sounds of the pulleys and levers bringing the elevator up to them when suddenly, Draco burst into laughter.

"What?" Hermione said. Draco continued to chuckle, breathing deeply before completely adopting the most serious expression and saying, "You'll see in about 5, 4, 3, 2,..."

The lift doors opened revealing a very perturbed Mrs. Jenkins. "1." Draco finished almost so quietly Hermione wasn't sure that he had even said anything in the first place.

"Oh," Mrs. Jenkins said, her voice abnormally loud. Draco's face turned into a grimace. "Hello, Miss Granger. Who's your friend?"

"Oh, I'm her boyfriend," Draco said quickly. Hermione looked at him incredulously. What the bloody hell was wrong with Malfoy? "Draco Malfoy, pleasure to meet you m'am. I think we spoke on the phone just a few moments before, did we not?"

Mrs. Jenkins face turned a delicate shade of pink. She shuffled her mauve tartan clad feet and said her voice still abnormally loud, "Why yes! We did, didn't we?"

Hermione stepped into the lift and promptly stood in the corner as Draco followed her, flashing Mrs. Jenkins a toothy grin before settling in next to Hermione. The lift doors closed and for two agonizing seconds as the elevator descended back to Mrs. Jenkins floor, Hermione felt as though if she was struck with a bolt of lightning, she wouldn't mind.

To Hermione's immense relief, the lift doors opened not a second too soon and Mrs. Jenkins hobbled across the threshold and onto her floor. Right as the doors were closing she turned back to a red-faced Hermione and smug looking Draco and said, "Make sure to use protection! I don't know if I can handle any babies crying at the moment!"

Hermione blanched as the doors clicked shut. Malfoy burst into laughter. Could this day possibly get any worse?

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Hermione and Malfoy settled down in possibly the most shaded area of the park where he had taken her. Despite the cloudy overcast, Draco had been adamant that they settle at the picnic table under the great Maple tree in the park.

Removing her note pad and pen from her bag, Hermione placed it on the picnic table and took a sip of her extra large coke that Draco had bought for her when they had first entered the park.

"Ok, so we're supposed to inform the people about vampires," Hermione said clicking open her pen and poising it over her pad of paper. She looked expectantly up at Malfoy to find him staring at the cup of soda. "What's wrong?"

Draco shook his head and said quietly, "Nothing. OK, so what've you got?"

Hermione looked down at the pad of paper and said, "Nothing."

"Well, what are the stereotypes that most people think of when they hear the word 'vampire'?"

Pondering this, Hermione tapped her pen against the pad of paper, and then clicked it open and closed repeatedly. Draco's face became annoyed very fast. Quicker than Hermione thought possible, Draco had reached across the table and covered Hermione's hand in his own. Almost immediately, Hermione felt like jumping across the table and kissing him senseless. She wanted to feel his skin on hers and knew that he wanted to same. Before Hermione could act brashly though, Draco released her hand and the feelings disappeared. Hermione blinked her eyes and found that she had stood from her seat at the table. Draco was giving her a thoughtful look, almost as though he was having the biggest epiphany of his life yet.

"Um, yes, what were we saying?" Hermione said, sitting down again and taking a large gulp of her soda.

"Stereotypes of vampires," Draco filled in, clasping his hands together in his lap.

"Yes. Well, most people think of garlic and everything like that. That they don't come out in daylight. Oh, and coffins, can't forget that they think they sleep in those," Hermione said, tapping her pen absently mindly on her paper again.

"Write it down," Draco said softly. Hermione jumped slightly and hurried to write all of her thoughts down under the title of 'stereotypes'.

"Can you think of anything else?" Draco said.

"Holy water and crucifixes," Hermione said.

Draco pointed to the paper and made the movements of writing something down. Hermione took the hint and jotted down those as well.

"Maybe we should ask people what it is that they think of when they hear the word 'vampire'."

"Good idea," Draco said, standing suddenly. Hermione followed suit, gathering all her things together.

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	5. Chapter 5

**A/N Ok, I give all the credit to this chapter, the idea of it and everything, to Stephenie Meyer, author of the _Twilight_ series. She is such a wonderful writer, one that I admire completely. If you haven't read her stories, I strongly urge you to do so. They are incredible! And also, HP belongs to the ever prominent, J.K. Rowling. **

Chapter Five: Dreams

_Hermione sighed and blinked her eyes. All around her were the apparent signs of spring. There were the birds singing, the flowers blooming, and the unmistakable amount of scurrying throughout the animal kingdom; each one trying to find the best mate. Sunlight trickled down upon her as she lay back in the tall grass. Hermione lazily reached out and plucked a dandelion head from its stem. She twirled it between her fingers, breathing deeply. As the wind picked up, Hermione held the dandelion up, letting it get caught in the light breeze. The dandelion burst apart, each of its seeds dispersing throughout the wind and towards its new home._

_There were the sounds of twigs breaking, and Hermione sat up suddenly. Her eyes scanned the dense foliage, but couldn't find the culprit. Who dare to intrude on her solitude?_

"_Over here," a soft voice said. The sound echoed throughout the meadow; Hermione searched all the more frantically trying to find the voice she had grown to love, the one she had grown addicted to. _

_He laughed; a laugh full of mirth. Hermione stood, brushing off her dress absent-mindedly with the palms of her hands. _

"_Where are you?" She asked her voice equally as soft so as to not hurt him._

"_I'm right here," He said, his voice louder than before. _

_Hermione whipped around and faced him. His face was masked in shadow, though his body looked lean and strong. It intimidated her, just as it was designed to do. He looked torn between coming out in the sunlight with her and staying in the shadows._

"_I wonder what you would think of me if you were to see the real me." He said. His voice was so soft; so warm; so kind. Hermione wished to relish in its sleekness for the rest of eternity._

"_Do I know you?" Hermione asked. She felt as though she had known him forever. The wind picked up, bringing with it the scent of his cologne. Then and there she felt that she would do anything for him._

"_Yes," he said, picking his way around the perimeter of the meadow, his head still in complete shadow. "And no."_

"_Well, then, who are you?" Hermione voiced. She watched as he walked briskly about the meadow. She circled with him, facing him at all times. "Will you tell me?"_

"_Someday," came the clipped reply. _

_Hermione knew enough of this stranger not to press the matter. She sat on the grass, basking in the sunlight. "Will you join me?"_

"_You wouldn't like it if I did," He said._

"_Why not?"_

"_It would be too painful for you; too tempting for me."_

"_Tempting?"_

"_Have I ever told you how wonderfully delicious your blood smells, Hermione?" came the answer. Hermione didn't know what to say. She looked at her bare feet, studying them intently. What did he mean? How could he smell her blood? "It would be too tempting for me to kill you. I desire to know what it is that you taste like; I want to keep you alive at the same time, as well."_

"_Will you at least step into the light so that I might see your face?" Hermione asked innocently, shielding her eyes with her hand. The sunlight seemed to have increased its brightness._

"_Would that satisfy you?" He asked a slightly mocking tone in his voice._

_Hermione pondered this. "For the time being," she said._

"_As you wish, mon Cherie," he said, his voice sounding like honey. And in that instant, Hermione felt like the bee, drawn to its sweetness._

_Slightly apprehensive, Hermione watched as the man hesitated. And then he stuck his clothed foot and leg out into the open. Hermione watched as the rest of his body followed. Where his bare arms and head should have been were bright balls of glittering light. It was almost as though a million diamonds had been strung together into a chandelier of sorts and was now hanging suspended before this man, obscuring his identity. Hermione squinted her eyes, and placed a hand before her face to try and block out the full effect of his light. The only thing that Hermione could think of was that this man was a beacon, but to what, she was unsure of. _

_He kept coming closer and closer till it was all Hermione could do to not beg him to return to the shadows. The light covering him grew ever brighter as he continued to advance on Hermione._

_The wind blew through the meadow then, stirring up the scent of his cologne. Hermione's hand dropped from her face. She stood on shaky legs and let the smell of him ensnare her senses. And still he advanced. Hermione let her eyelids droop closed as she continued to breathe deeply; the smell of him was so delightful. The wind blew a second time, this time from behind Hermione. Her own scent was thrown against him, causing him to stumble backwards in surprise. And just like that, he was no longer human. He was a predator, and she, his prey._

"_Forgive me, Love," He said._

_The last thing Hermione saw was him pounce at her. The light grew so bright it hurt to even have her face turned towards him. She felt the coolness of his hands on hers, the hard ground that collided with her back when he pushed her backwards, and the cold lips on her neck that prepared to bite, to feed, and then_

_Hermione woke up._


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N I'm trying not to rush anything here. This story line is kind of complicated, but I trust that y'all will get it when the time comes! **

**You know what to do… do I even need to say it anymore? **

Disclaimer: You know what I just realized? I'm taking a lot of things from an actual book… one other than Harry Potter and I'm completely and whole-heartedly sorry. From now on, not only are my disclaimers to Harry Potter; it's to the Twilight series and Stephenie Meyer. Sorry for never having had realized sooner!

Chapter Six: Revelations

"You've been acting strange lately," Hermione stated. They were seated in one of Malfoy's lavish parlors at his manor.

"Have I?" Malfoy asked his voice distant. His eyes were focused on some distant point, staring at something Hermione could not see.

"Yes," Hermione said, placing the pad of paper and pen that had been in her lap on the small table beside the sofa she was currently lounging on.

"Nice to know that you've been studying me, Granger."

"What's wrong with you?"

"I don't even know what you're talking about! I haven't been acting different!"

"Ok, first there was the episode with Pansy at the Daily Prophet. I didn't think you'd reduce yourself to crawling under a desk to simply get away from your own fiancé! Oh, and then with my neighbor, Mrs. Jenkins? What was that? Have you just been deprived of acting like a git that you found it completely necessary to thoroughly embarrass me? I'll have you know I can't even look at Mrs. Jenkins's floor without blushing."

"Things have changed about me, Granger," Draco said, absent-mindedly stroking at his elbow. "I don't think you'd understand."

"Would you tell me if I told you I would?"

"No," came the haughty reply. Malfoy's voice sounded almost normal. It eased Hermione back into formality and she felt better about them having to work together. It was just too strange to have to talk to him and be close to him when deep down she hated him and he her, but he acted like he was a better person than she thought he could ever be. Plus the facts that no matter how hard she tried, the smell of Malfoy's cologne was too alluring. It was unnerving! She didn't want to think of Malfoy as alluring! He was nothing more to her than a snooty person with a rich name!

"Why'd you hide from Pansy, Draco," Hermione asked her voice soft.

"What else do we have to do?" Draco countered, suddenly intently focused on working. "Do you have anything about feeding habits and the like?"

"Why won't you tell me?" Hermione asked, ignoring Draco's questions.

"And why are you so persistent to know?"

"I'm just curious! It's just not like you!"

"Oh, and you know me, Granger?"

"Well, no, but that just seems like something the Draco Malfoy from school would never do!"

"Drop it, Granger. You're already treading on dangerous water."

"What're you going to do to me, Malfoy? Nothing! If you do, the Prophet will know; I do still have to check in, you know."

"There are other ways of killing you, Granger, than by merely using magic."

"Please, enlighten me with the wonderful details."

Malfoy folded his hands together, leaning forward in his seat on the opposite sofa. Hermione tucked her legs underneath her and crossed her arms. They had a stare down for a minute, before Malfoy blinked and fell back into the sofa, his hands over his eyes.

"Ok, vampires for instance," Draco began, letting his hands fall to his lap and staring up at the ceiling. "Vampires can kill you by sucking out all of your blood, but they can also kill you from a bite. There is a poison on vampire's incisors that once in the bloodstream will cause you to 'die' in a sense and become a vampire yourself. Do you understand?"

"Mostly," Hermione said. She had picked up her pad of paper and was currently scribbling everything Malfoy said onto the page.

Malfoy sighed. "Ok, the poison will act like…. It's like muggle science!"

"You know about muggle science?" Hermione asked skeptically, one eyebrow raised quizzically.

"Well, in the sense that things, cells, are being broken apart and others are taking their place. The poison has something in it that will convert all of your cells so that you are now like a vampire; you are a vampire.

"Do you believe that after you die, your soul goes somewhere else?"

"I guess so…"

"That's what I mean by death. Then you go through the transformation; the fire that courses through your veins. That's your blood turning into something like silver, at least silver in color, and your body making the changes to adapt to a new personality, new senses, and new appetite."

"Ok, and then after your first transformation, then what?" Hermione said pen poised over the legal pad.

Draco looked thoughtful, almost as though he was remembering an experience himself.

"There's an insatiable need to feed."

"To feed?"

"On blood. The only thing in your mind is that you must kill and a vampire will kill anything and anyone to satisfy their hunger. Animals and people alike are not safe from them should they cross paths."

Hermione wrote down what Draco said. She was trying to imagine what it must feel like to have your body on fire, but quickly gave up.

"Do all vampires drink human blood?" Hermione asked, feeling all the more like a big-time news reporter than the little field reporter that had previously been her job.

"No."

Hermione looked up and fixed Draco with a curious stare. "Then what else do they drink?"

"Animal blood; some vampires will only drink animal blood, they feel that it is wrong to drink human blood," Draco stated matter-of-factly. He stood from his chair and walked briskly over to the bar. His movements seemed faster than humanly possible, but Hermione blew it off. She watched as Draco poured two glasses of wine and brought it back to the sofas where they had both been seated. He held out a glass to Hermione, which she took without hesitation. Draco plopped down on the sofa and stared at his wine glass. The look on his face showed utmost desire.

Taking a small sip, Hermione placed her wine glass on the table next to her and sighed.

"I have a question for you."

"Ok."

"If a vampire were to feed extensively for the course of a night, how long would that satisfy them?"

Draco sighed as well and placed his still-full wine glass on the coffee table. "Depends on how far into your life as a vampire you are. If you've just been transformed, you would need to feed every night or day even till you are satisfied. If your in the middle of your new life, about once a week or so. As you get older, it would be easier to go longer and longer and longer without feeding. However, there are the times when even the most well trained vampires will lapse into the hunter-and-prey thought processes. It is always wise for all vampires to feed regularly."

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Draco was tired and he was confused. Draco Malfoy was never confused, and the experience was somewhat unnerving, especially to be felt at his age. Age. That constituted years, months, days, hours minutes, seconds of growth. And as far as he could tell, he had not grown in nearly three years. He was ok now; no one would notice that his face had stopped maturing, that his body would always be towering and muscular. He would always be intimidating to the people smaller than him; people like Hermione.

Oh, where to start with her? She was smart-too smart, and her boss had assigned her of all people to work with him on an article about vampires! He could have laughed at the irony of his situation.

Ever since they had started working, he had been adamant of where they worked, where they met, and if the weather should show the slightest chance of being sunny, he would opt for a more shady area, like his house that had barriers and sun-blocking spells cast over all the doors and windows. He felt constricted.

No longer could he simply walk out-of-doors and to his broom shed. He couldn't ride free and out in the open. He had to wait for the cover of clouds, and the absolute fact that absolutely no one would be near his home, at least not close enough to see the bright ball of light so like diamonds flying through the sky that they would venture too close and therefore, never see anything else again. He was very quick with his deaths, he did not linger, and he did not tease; that was cruel. No, Draco was fast. A quick bite, a few sucks, the feeling of warm blood flowing over his tongue, swishing through his teeth as his victims shuddered and then fell limp, their hearts no longer beating. And it was then that he made sure that not an ounce of blood was left. He did not want another to suffer the same fate as he himself must endure for the rest of eternity.

Again, Draco's thoughts flew to Hermione. She was questioning him; soon they would lead to the assumptions and then he would slip and she would be proved right. But, who would she tell, that is, if she were to tell someone? She would learn why he was avoiding Pansy. Truth was, he wanted to kill Pansy Parkinson. He had avoided her like the plague since that day he had been sentenced to be cursed till judgment day, but the girl still fancied the thought of being a Malfoy. She would entertain the thought; she might even make it to her wedding day, but she wouldn't be affiliated to Draco for long. None save Greg Tomlinson knew of his state, and soon Granger, and he was positive that neither would testify against him. There would be no proof. It would be a mysterious death. He would kill her; drink her blood, and then he would throw Pansy's body off the balcony, obliterating all traces of his bite. It was a master plan.

Draco smiled and paused in the brush he was standing in. His ears attuned to the spaces around him. He heard the rabbits below him, sleeping in their dens. He heard the birds in their nests above him. He heard the deer pacing nervously downwind from him. He became intently aware of the trees and their distance from one another. Swiftly, Draco sprinted to the other side of the wood. The deer shuddered. If anyone else were to see this, it would be a flash of silver in a dim shadow. It would be the trick of the eye.

The moon drifted behind a lazy cloud and the deer seemingly relaxed, feeling more secure in this damp darkness than in the moonlight. Draco's eyes adjusted to the change of light instantaneously. Sometimes it amazed him, these simple changes and how they affected him. He smiled again.

It was over in a matter of seconds. One second the deer was eating, crunching the blades of grass over and over on its molars, and the next, the deer was on the ground, its eyes unseeing, its body twitching. And Draco knelt over it, his cold lips to its neck drawing the warmth from its body that for once in his life, did not sustain him like it had before. This time, it left him yearning for a more sweater blood.

**A/N**

**Reviews are terrible. There, I said it point blank. I need support here, people! I won't review again until I have at least thirty reviews. That's not a lot to ask for, right? **

_**I've Got another Confession to Make** _


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N I know I said I wouldn't update again until I had like 30 reviews or something like that, but I'm really tired of waiting for all of you to actually review so here's the next bit. If you don't like it, than I'm sorry, but I really am trying and hope that you'll review anyway. It makes my day just a little bit brighter! And, thank you to those of you who love the story and review every chapter! That makes me EXTREMELY happy:**

_I'd swim across lake Michigan, I'd sell my shoes, I'd give my body to be back again, In the rest of the room, To be alone with you – Sufjan Stevens_

Chapter Seven: The Truth

Hermione paced through her kitchen. Spatula in one hand and an old library book in the other open somewhere around the middle. She walked to the fridge, placed the spatula in her mouth and opened the door, groping around blindly for the carton of eggs. Once her hand made contact with the Styrofoam carton, she turned and pushed the door closed with her foot and walked the three steps back to the counter, her eyes still glued to the book before her.

"Vampires, vampires, vampires," Hermione muttered under her breath as she scanned the page, cracking open eggs as she did. She missed the skillet as she attempted to drop the egg in and read at the same time. "Dammit!" She muttered as the egg yoke scoured against the stove top. Propping the book against the cookbook holder, Hermione quickly vanished the mess with a flick of her wand and returned to her book.

"Vampires are docile creatures unless threatened… yadda, yadda, yadda…." Hermione muttered scanning the page quickly. "A vampire is loyal to their mate till the day of their death. The only way to kill a vampire is to first kill their mate which would in turn take away their immortality and make them vulnerable for a period of approximately five minutes. Vampires find their mate usually in the same country of their birth and will most likely find it in the person that they have only one tiny common goal or feeling that is mutual between both parties…It can take a vampire as long as five hundred years to find their true mate... Sometimes their mate is someone they knew from when they were human…"

Hermione absently waved her wand at the mess that was supposed to be her breakfast and took the book in her hands as the eggs and bacon began to cook themselves. She sat at her kitchen table and bent over the book, fully absorbed in the text. "Vampires have excellent hearing, smell and taste. They are excellent predators… they use all of their senses to hunt. They also use their skin as a way to attract their prey to them. Sunlight reflects off of them in a way very much so like diamonds…" Hermione immediately thought back to her last dream. "Their skin radiates a certain perfume that is most desirous to the person they are trying to attract whether it be their mate or their prey…"

Millions of thoughts and questions were running through Hermione's mind as she continued to read out loud.

"You know," a silky voice said from the doorway to the kitchen. Surprised, Hermione fell back out of her chair with a yelp of both pain and fear. "I could have told you all that."

Peering up over the table, Hermione met the grey eyes of Malfoy.

"How did you get in my house?!" Hermione screeched, standing suddenly to her feet.

"You're not very good at putting up alohomora blocking charms," Draco said as he leaned jauntily against the door frame.

"I am too!" Hermione cried indignantly. "I just forget every now and then."

"That doesn't really sound like you, Granger," Draco noted as he peered over at the stove. "Your foods burning."

Hermione turned towards the stove and mentally cursed herself for forgetting about the food. The spatula she had charmed to keep moving in her absence was turning over charred bacon strips and dry, dark brown scrambled eggs. She grabbed the skillet handle and took it off the burner, cursing under her breath all the while.

"Are you a bit preoccupied studying all these…" Draco began, walking over to the table and lifting the cover of the book to see the title. "'Mating and Feeding Habits of the New Age Vampire'?"

Hermione looked away embarrassed. She dumped the skillet of eggs in the sink and then went back for the charred bacon. Draco took a seat in the one chair still standing and propped his feet up on the table. He took one of the books off the table and opened it, scanning its contents and laughing occasionally.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" Hermione asked, placing the second skillet in the sink and turning on her heel, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I couldn't sleep," Malfoy answered.

"Do you ever sleep?" Hermione countered. "You always seem to be coming over to my house hours before we're even supposed to meet."

Malfoy tossed the dusty tome back onto the table and leaned back, placing his hands behind his head. "Well, you're always awake, right? So, what does it really matter?"

"Well, what if I wasn't? Then what?" Hermione asked throwing the wash cloth that was in her hand into the soapy water of the sink. Water sprayed up and splashed the front of her shirt. Hermione sighed angrily and took her wand, saying a drying spell before turning to the table and sitting heavily in her now up-right chair.

"Then… I'd leave, I don't know, what do you want me to say?" Draco asked. "Would you like it if I called before I came?"

"You don't know how to use a telephone," Hermione replied.

"Maybe not, but one can always learn…. Right Hermione?" Draco countered. Hermione didn't say anything, just slouched in her chair and studied the man before her.

"Did you know that your skin glows?" Hermione asked before she could think not to say anything.

Draco's eyes changed. No longer were they playful as they had been when he arrived. Now they were dark and almost guarded.

"What do you mean?" He asked gruffly, hiding his hands beneath the wooden table top.

Hermione shrugged sudden realization hitting her like a ton of bricks. "Your skin glows… like diamonds….Malfoy, you're a-"

"You know, Granger, it's been real fun being with you nearly twenty-four seven since you've been given this assignment, but I really got to go!" Draco said, standing suddenly. He walked briskly over to the front door and called to Hermione who was just standing from her chair, "See you later, Granger!"

♥

"Hermione, what are you doing here?"

Hermione turned, meeting the eyes of one of her coworkers. "Oh, assignment decided to spend the day to himself… How've you been, Tom?"

"Alright, I guess… How've you been?" Tom asked shuffling his feet.

"Better," Hermione replied vaguely, smiling slightly. Tom's cheeks turned a slight shade of pink, so soft that Hermione could have mistaken it for a heat flush.

"Hey, I wanted to ask you something," Tom said suddenly, shuffling his feet again. He bent his head and looked to the floor for a moment before meeting Hermione's eyes. "I was wondering if maybe you would like to go out to dinner Friday."

Hermione smiled warmly and nodded her head enthusiastically. "Yes, that would be great."

Tom's lips broke out into a smile. "Wonderful. Uh, I guess I'll call you later and tell you when and where?"

"Good, that'll be good," Hermione said. "Let me get you my number."

Hermione scribbled her phone number onto a corner of a rough draft of her piece on vampires and handed it to Tom, who read it once and then folded it before placing it in the bill flap of his wallet.

"I'll call you," Tom said, a broad smile on his face. Hermione looked down at her shoes as she glided down the hall towards her office.

"Granger, get that stupid grin off your face and get back to work."

Hermione looked up unfazed, that smile still glued to her lips and met Pansy Parkinson's eyes. Flanked to her right was Malfoy and next to him was someone she hadn't seen since the day they all left school, Blaise Zabini.

"You do realize Parkinson that I am higher in office than you and no longer have to listen to you," Hermione said. "Matter of fact, I should tell you to get off of your arse, make your men leave and get yourself back to work!"

Smiling, Hermione continued to her office, never hearing the snide remarks Parkinson made to her happiness or the soft footsteps that followed her to her office door.

Settling into her plush leather chair, Hermione laid down her files and looked out her office windows at the view of Muggle London.

"Ahem," A quiet voice said.

Hermione turned suddenly, smiling faded slightly before it completely diminished at the sight of her visitor.

"What do you want?" Hermione asked rudely leaning back in her chair. "Pansy not enough for one day, Malfoy? Have to resort back to the old days?"

Malfoy smirked and scoffed at the same time. "You wish, Granger," He said as he plopped himself unceremoniously into one of her vacant chairs before her desk. "I actually wanted to be away from Pansy and apologize for my earlier behavior."

"You wanted to apologize for your behavior?" Hermione echoed slowly, a dazed expression on her face.

"Yes," Malfoy said slowly as though he were talking to someone incredibly slow. "I can do that you know, where you open your mouth and sounds come out forming into words and then you open your big mouth and tell me 'It's OK, Malfoy, I forgive you,' and I go home and bother you tomorrow bright and early."

"And if I don't accept your apology?" Hermione questioned, cocking her head to the right an inquisitive look on her face.

Malfoy sighed dramatically and said nonchalantly, "Then I won't tell you my big secret."

"What that you're a pompous git?"

"No, that one seems to be widely known…"

"That you're an insufferable pain in the world's arse?"

"That too appears to be known," Malfoy said crossing and then uncrossing his legs. "No, no one knows this one, except me and very soon you, that is if you accept my apology."

Hermione sighed. She was always nosy, try as she may to not be. And whatever secret Malfoy had was desired by Hermione. She totally and completely wanted to know what this secret was, and she was pretty sure she could forgive Malfoy for just about almost anything to know what it was.

"Do you accept my apology?" Malfoy said softly, staring Hermione in the eye.

"Ah, but you haven't apologized yet," Hermione stated matter-of-factly turning her chair in half circles back and forth.

Malfoy sighed. "I'm sorry for being short with you earlier. Forgive me?"

"I suppose so," Hermione said like she hadn't a care in the world. Then rather excitedly, she leaned forward in her chair, placed her hands, folded together, on top of her desk and said, "Now, what's your secret?"

"Oh, look at the time," Draco said looking at his wrist. "Really must get going. I have a previous dinner arrangement."

"But-"

_Knock! Knock!_

"Hermione?"

Hermione swiveled in her chair and met the cool blue eyes of Tom. "Oh, hey, what's up?"

Draco looked from Hermione to Tom with an indescribable look on his face.

Tom shifted uneasily, looking at Draco who was now standing in what could only be described as a intimidating stance. His grey eyes were like a raging storm as he took in this man who was not only the same height but appeared to like _his_ Hermione.

"I was wondering if maybe I could talk to you in private for a moment?" Tom said anxiously, looking one last time at Draco who appeared to be restraining himself to the single patch of beige carpet he was standing on. Hermione nearly flew out of her chair and into the hall, a bright and cheery smile on her face which Tom reciprocated as soon as they were both in the hall and the door was closed.

"Is something the matter?" Hermione asked breathlessly, looking up into Tom's handsome face.

"I was thinking earlier, and if you wouldn't mind," Tom began. "I was wondering if maybe you wouldn't mind going to dinner with me tonight?"

Hermione couldn't answer. She nodded her head and blushed slightly when Tom grasped her hand and was even forward enough to softly kiss her cheek.

"See you tonight Hermione," Tom said. "I'll call you for directions."

Again, all Hermione could do was nod her head in agreement. She walked as if on a cloud back into her office, surprised to find Malfoy fuming mad in one of the chairs.

"Are you really going out with him?" He asked, standing though he didn't come closer. Hermione nodded.

"Yeah, I am. What does it matter to you, Malfoy?" Hermione asked her tone slightly harsh.

Malfoy's voice deflated, but his angry expression grew all the more prominent as he took two staggered steps towards Hermione. "I guess I just find it hard to forget about the way you were mine in school."

"That was what," Hermione said incredulously. "Like, four years ago? You didn't care about me then, don't act like you do now."

"You sure do presume a lot of things, don't you, Hermione," Malfoy said brushing past her and opening the door. "I may not love you, but I don't hate you." He turned as if to leave and then turned as if on second thought and said, "Oh, and as for that secret, you can forget about it."

And with that Malfoy strode out of the room, shutting the door so hard that the pictures decorating Hermione's walls rattled and turned on their sides. Hermione sighed in both confusion and anger, crossing her arms over her chest and trying to decipher this puzzle that Malfoy had burdened her with.

**A/N **

**What do you think? Too fast? Not fast enough? I'm trying to ease into the whole romance thing… Tell me what you think!**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: OK, So as I've been reading I've seen all these shout-outs to betas… what the heck are betas?! And how do you get a beta for that matter? Someone please help me out here! It's killing me not knowing! Haha! **

**I don't know why I even say this anymore… you do it anyway! But, as always, please review! Thanks guys: **

Chapter Eight: Jealousy is Love

"Granger! Granger, open the door!"

Hermione stumbled out of her room, throwing on her robe haphazardly as she ran to the door. The pounding on the door increased to near frantic proportions.

"I'm coming!" Hermione called. She hurried to the door and unlocked the muggle locks, and then said the wizarding ones as well. Throwing open the door, Hermione yelled, "What, Malfoy?! What do you find so bloody important as to not only break down my door but also wake my entire building?!"

Malfoy burst through the door uninvited and turned to face Hermione. "Look, Granger, I don't know what the hell has happened to me but I can't stop this!"

"What? You can't stop what?" Hermione said her voice uneven. "You're not being specific?!"

Running a hand uneasily through his hair, Malfoy took two steps closer and then three steps back. He sighed and kicked the wall, leaving a large black boot print on the once clean white paint, ignoring Hermione's protests. And then he did it. Dropping all emotion from his face, Malfoy took the five long steps to Hermione and shoved her up against the wall before swooping in and kissing her.

Fire. That would be the best way to describe it. Or maybe insanity. That would be another accurate description. For not only was it like her entire body was on fire when his lips touched her own, but her mind was a jumble of incoherent thoughts, unsolved answers, and what felt like a need to be so close to him that no matter how many things she did to attempt to slack this lust, it would never be satisfying. She would never be satisfied. It was insane how one tiny kiss could make her want to loose control, make her loose all her morals in such an insensible manner.

Hermione ran her hands through his hair and down his neck, clutching at the lapels of his overcoat and tugging them so roughly that the jerk of his jacket from his shoulders made Malfoy break away, panting slightly. Breathing heavily, Hermione slowly opened her eyes. She immediately wished she hadn't. Not only was her robe which had so carelessly been thrown on over her half-naked body in a crumpled heap on the floor, her bra was also mysteriously missing, and the look that Malfoy was giving the wall said everything.

MISTAKE; in huge capital letters, stenciled across the cream wall. Hermione hastily bent down and retrieved her robe, throwing it around her shoulders and holding the front closed with a vice-like grip.

"What the hell was that?" Hermione whispered, her voice harsh even to her own ears.

Malfoy turned to Hermione, his eyes appeared pained. "I can't help it… I just want- I want…"

"What do you want, Malfoy?" Hermione cried exasperatedly.

"You, dammit!" Malfoy said, his voice full of emotion. "Ever since that day you left me in that classroom, ever since you acted like I was the scum on the bottom of your shoe! Ever since you started to date that scumbag in your office!"

"Don't bring Tom into this! You don't even know him!" Hermione said, her voice deathly quiet. "And all this shit about wanting me? All we ever were in school is- is… God, is there even a name for it?"

Malfoy went to respond but Hermione beat him to it.

"All I really know is that at one moment you act like I'm the release to you dead fiancés memory," Hermione screamed at him ignoring the harsh look Malfoy gave her, "And then next, after THREE months, might I add, I'm the replacement to your latest Slytherin whore, like I always was!"

"Shit, Hermione, you act like you know everything!" Malfoy screamed, his cheeks turning pink. "You think in your overgrown, bushy head that everything works only one way in my mind and that nothing else can change that!"

"Well, isn't that how it's always been, Malfoy?" Hermione countered. "Weren't you always with someone or another, fucking their brains out till kingdom come? Why me, Malfoy? Why did you have to make _me_ the replacement part?"

"I didn't make you, Hermione," Malfoy said softly. He came close again, his voice and actions soft, causing Hermione to relax slightly from her anger. Cautiously, he traced a finger down the side of Hermione's face. "I choose you." The anger flared again like a candle finding a source of oxygen, a source of escape.

"_Why?_" Hermione asked, clutching her robe closed.

"I don't know," Malfoy said. "Please, don't go out with Tom tonight, please don't."

Hermione closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the wall. "Malfoy, what are you trying to do to me? I mean, it's like we're back in school- never knowing where we stand in our relationship, if we can even call it that. You act like I'm one of your _possessions_ one moment and then the next you act like I'm nothing of great importance, simply the priceless, antique vase in your manor."

"I can't tell you," Malfoy said decisively.

"Then just _leave_, Malfoy," Hermione said. She turned her head away so she couldn't see Malfoy's face. "I don't want to go through what I went through in school. I don't want to keep looking for you in abandoned broom closets and classrooms… I just want to move on. For four years I never even thought of you, and yet, in a matter of seconds, you've become a solid fixture in my life again. I hate that!"

Malfoy leaned his head back so that when he looked at Hermione, he saw all of her face. "I can't just leave, Hermione. I can't just walk out of your life… I'm too involved, no matter what you try to convince yourself. You're smart- I want you to figure it out."

"Figure what out?" Hermione said.

"My big secret."

Hermione scoffed. "Your big secret? Now you want to make me guess? What happened to if I forgave you, you would tell me?"

"I can't just tell you, it's against the rules. You have to figure the first part out for yourself. And as for the whole, I'll tell you is you forgive me thing, I never honestly thought that you would forgive me." Malfoy said taking a step back. Hermione felt the lack of his heat and berated herself for wishing that it was there again.

"I have to guess your secret because it's against the rules for you to tell me?" Hermione said skeptically. Malfoy nodded his head almost mournfully.

"I'd tell you if I could, Hermione, you know I would," Malfoy said.

"Let me take a wild guess here," Hermione said sarcastically. "The only reason why Greg Tomlinson assigned you and me together for my assignment on _vampires_ of all things is because you are one. And all those stupid feelings I get whenever you touch me is because for some odd reason, you're trying to attract me to you- Why the bloody hell are you smiling at me?"

Malfoy smiled broader and even had the audacity to chuckle.

"It's absurd that I would even think this," Hermione said, shaking her head.

"But that's the whole point, isn't it?" Malfoy said, stepping away and spreading his arms wide. "For the longest time, muggles believed that there wasn't any magic, and that all those things sorcerers did were something of a sin, right? What's so absurd of there being vampires existing? What's so absurd of someone close to you being one?"

Hermione scoffed again and placed an indignant hand on her hip. "Are you saying that you're a vampire, Malfoy?"

"Ding, ding, ding! The smartest witch of our age gets the correct answer after nearly two weeks!" Malfoy said sarcastically. "And do you know what else? Something that you've read before in those dusty books still sitting on your kitchen table?"

"What?" Hermione asked breathlessly as Malfoy took a step closer.

"You're it, you're the one, I know it, I can feel it!"

Malfoy's eyes were bright with excitement. His very skin twitched as if he was having a hard time staying in one spot and his hands clenched the bottom of his jacket, crumpling the expensive material in his fingers.

"I'm the one," Hermione said slowly attempting with all her might to keep from laughing. "That's absurd!"

"I know which is why it makes perfect sense!" Malfoy said excitedly.

Hermione couldn't help it. The look and the mannerisms of Malfoy were just too hilarious! She bent over in breathless laughs, clutching her ribs in pain at the lack of oxygen. Malfoy's expression dropped and he crossed his arms indignantly over his chest and tapped his foot silently on the carpeted floor.

"Granger, what the hell is so bloody funny?"

"You know," Hermione said, standing as straight as she could. She opened the door and leaned against the thick wood. "I love standing around all day and listening to you make ridiculous accusations but I really have to go! I have a big date to prepare for with someone remarkably normal! I'll see you later, Malfoy."

Malfoy narrowed his eyes and strode out of the apartment. His glare at Hermione sent shivers down her spine. She felt the intense need at the back of her mind to take his arm, stop him from leaving and apologizing. But Hermione was never one to listen to the side of her brain that involved her heart and so she didn't grab his arm, she didn't keep him from leaving, and she didn't apologize though the agony she felt as he left was something that was quite foreign and very much so unpleasant, so much so that she almost dropped her damned pride and ran down the hall after him. Instead, she hurriedly closed the door, slamming it back into a closed position and flew down the hall to her room where she sat on the edge of her bed, placing a shaky finger to her lips and feeling their swollenness.

"What are you trying to do to me, Malfoy?" Hermione whispered into the stillness of her room. She sat there for god knows how long contemplating. What would it be like to be married to a vampire? Would their children be vampires? Would it be a fifty/fifty chance? What the hell was she thinking? She wasn't going to be anything related to intimate with Malfoy, not again, at least, not if she could help it. It was so hard for her to restrain herself in his presence. The rational and more accepting side of her said that, yes, Malfoy was a vampire, he just HAD to be. The other side, the one she couldn't place a name to, said that there was NO WAY on this Earth that vampires could be anything other than legend. She had taken this assignment with the mindset of getting it done, doing it to the best of her ability and still keeping the same belief of what her more _muggle_ instincts told her; vampires were a part of mythology, plain and simple.

Hermione couldn't quite place this new feeling in her head. There were the feelings she still harbored for him in school, the ones that had never fully been terminated from her brain. The ones that told her he was her adventure. What they had was adventuresome and it was exciting to be in so elicit a relationship. But then where did her animosity towards him work into the picture? She sighed heavily and stood from the bed.

"It doesn't matter, Hermione," she coached herself, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes slowly. "Just forget about him."

And with that, she opened her eyes, fully exhaled and prepared for her date with Tom.

♥

"You look amazing, Hermione."

"Why, thank you," Hermione replied as they sat at a table in one of the more fancy restaurants in London. There was quiet chatter all about them. Women wearing all of their costume jewelry and men wearing expensive suits. It almost made Hermione extremely appreciative towards her mother for forcing her to spend more than a months paycheck on a little black dress from a Barneys New York and having it shipped over. Tom was looking rather spiffy in his black suit. He left his brown hair loose, unlike most of the men and the waiters, all of whom had theirs gelled to their heads not quite so unlike Malfoy in the younger years of school.

_Uh, Malfoy,_ Hermione thought while mentally slapping herself at the same time. _I am not going to think about the foul, loathsome, evil, conniving, prick at all this evening!_

"Earth to Hermione!" Tom said trying to make eye contact.

Hermione jerked her head up and plastered a smile on her face. "I'm sorry, I've just been really busy these last few days. I have a lot on my mind."

"Tell me about it," Tom began. "You'll never believe what assignment Tomlinson gave me! Or who I'm to be partnered with! Pansy Parkinson! It's horrible and utterly-"

Without meaning to, Hermione tuned him out, thinking instead to more pressing matters. Like what the hell was she to do with Malfoy? She stared at Tom's lips as he chattered on about Parkinson and how she talked about Draco Malfoy at every possible moment. How she couldn't stop showing off her ring and saying that they were getting married in less than a month. That last one made Hermione's blood boil. He was hers, dammit! Wait, what?! He was NOT hers. Most DEFIANTLY not hers! Damn her for even thinking of possessing him! What was _wrong_ with her?!

Hermione took a tentative sip from her wine glass, nodding in agreement to what ever it was Tom was saying. She had to feel a little sorry for the guy. Here he was, most likely professing his undying love to her and she was thinking about bloody Malfoy. She was so absorbed in thinking of the platinum blond, so immersed in picturing his face that it took her a moment to realize she was staring at the real thing.

"Malfoy?!" She sputtered, so unprepared to see him, that it caused her to yell it across the crowded restaurant.

Everything went deathly silent; everyone stopped what they were doing and stared for the briefest of moments before everything came back to motion and things carried on normally. Tom glanced briefly behind him, catching Malfoy's glaring eye and secretly wishing that the damn prat had stayed far away. Now Hermione would never talk to him. She mostly ignored him whenever Malfoy was around.

Hermione stood roughly from her chair and weaved through the chairs eyes only for Malfoy.

"What the hell are you doing here, Granger?" Pansy Parkinson screeched. "Go away back to your own table!"

"Shut the hell up, Parkinson or I'll hex that pug nose from your face onto your arse!" Hermione whispered deathly quiet. A slight throbbing pain was forming at the back of her skull. Malfoy watched on in amusement.

"Migraine, Granger?" He asked nonchalantly.

"Only around you," Hermione replied. "You are the migraine!"

Malfoy smirked rather proudly. "Now, I really must ask you to leave. I'm attempting to have a nice dinner here with Parkin- Pansy and it would be more enjoyable if you weren't here breathing down my neck."

Hermione realized for the second time in less than five minutes she had garnered the attention of just about everyone in the restaurant. Even the cooks had popped their heads out into the room to see why everyone was so quiet. Hermione looked behind her at Tom, who was standing meekly from his seat, his napkin held limply in her hands.

She turned and walked decisively back to her table, sitting primly in her chair and taking a large gulp of her wine before smiling rather manically and trying to pretend as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The dull throbbing at the base of her neck flared and encompassed the whole back of her head, moving slowly and steadily to the front of her face. The lights seemed to turn brighter; the sounds of silverware on china sounded like the tiny little hand bells her elementary class played one Christmas for their parents. She ground her teeth together and finished off her goblet, ignoring not only Malfoy and she was sorry to admit, Tom, but also trying her hardest to forget about the migraine.

For the past four years, ever since her life had become less stressed with school and NEWTS and been free of constantly, consistently searching for Malfoy, her migraines had faded into nothing but a horrid, distant memory. A thing of the past.

"Hermione, are you OK?" Tom asked worriedly.

"I'm sorry, but I think that I'm getting a migraine," Hermione said her voice almost as soft as a whisper. Malfoy's eyes darted over to Hermione, concern flickering across the orbs briefly and then back to Pansy who was waving her arms around for emphasis as she described what she wanted and where for their wedding ceremony.

"Do you want to leave?" Tom asked again. "I could get this boxed up and we could eat in the dark, silently at your home if you'd like?"

Hermione smiled gratefully. "That would be so wonderful!"

♥

"Well, this is it," Hermione said opening the door and using the florescent light from the hallway to partially illuminate her living room. "It's much better in the light."

"I'm sure," Tom said lightly his voice joking as he walked into the room and sat at her sofa. Hermione closed the door and lit her wand, holding the light source away from her eyes. She lit the logs in the fireplace and a couple of candles on the mantle as she walked hastily into the kitchen to grab a couple of plates from the cupboard. "I think we're the first people to ever ask to have our food to go from that place."

Hermione agreed as she walked back into the living room and sat softly beside Tom on the couch, handing him a plate as she did so. They placed their orders, slightly cold, on their plates and ate in silence. 

"I'm sorry about earlier," Hermione said. Tom looked at her quizzically. "For screaming Malfoy's name in the middle of that restaurant. I just don't want to see him; and actually seeing him just, just made me feel like- cursing him…"

Tom nodded his head in understanding. "It's OK, Hermione. I really don't care. But I have to ask you something. Something important…"

"OK," Hermione said her voice unsure, a bit afraid of what could be so importantly asked after one date that hadn't even ended yet.

"I want to know, and please tell me honestly," Tom began, placing down his fork and knife on the edges of the plate. Hermione looked at the partially eaten steak, the green beans swimming through the steaks juices, her heart pounding in her chest.

"I promise that I'll answer you honestly."

Tom took a deep breath and shook his hair from his eyes. Hermione looked at his lips, hating how she compared them to Malfoy's.

"Tell me," Tom said, his voice soft, and his eyebrows furrowed together. "Do you love him?"

**A/N**

**Don't hate me! Cowers behind computer screen I promise that I'll have the next chapter up as soon as I can! Review and tell me what you think!**

**[And before anyone says anything, Tom is a wizard. They both work at the Daily Prophet… I don't know if I'd said that in one of the earlier chapters or not!**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: I'm really getting into this story! At first I was iffy about the whole story line and everything, but its coming together better than I even could have imagined! **

**Alright then, here's the next bit! Tell me what you think of it!**

Chapter Nine: A Thing of the Past Becomes a Thing of the Future…

_Four and a half years before…_

"Draco! Draco where are you?"

Malfoy tensed, reeling on his heel, searching, searching for a place to hide. The woman's voice, young in pitch, grew closer. She laughed slightly, her voice echoing through the mostly empty halls of Malfoy Manor.

_Draco, Draco, Draco… _

His name echoed down the hall as he threw open the first door he saw and flew into the room, clutching at a crescent shaped mark on his elbow. Blood seeped through his white dress shirt. Downstairs, he could still barely hear the muffled sounds of his mothers' guests as they mingled and danced in the ballroom. And yet, his fiancé's voice steadily and surely grew closer and closer to his hiding place.

Growing quiet, Malfoy wrapped his long, thin fingers carefully about the bite and tried to calm his breathing so that she wouldn't hear him. He tried to block his mind from her, tried to hide all the pictures he had mentally captured of a certain bookworm and all the things he wished to do to her… That would be disastrous.

_Come out, come out, where ever you are!_

Draco swallowed thickly, hating how dry his mouth had become. He curled up in the corner of the linen closet, biting his lower lip hard enough to draw blood. A metallic taste flooded his mouth. His eyes burned with a bright white light; his elbow where the bite was started to tingle unpleasantly, spreading up his arm into the rest of his body till his was writhing in silent pain on the floor. A sheen of sweat broke out just above his brow as more and more blood drew from his swollen lip, spilling down his chin and onto his shirt, staining it scarlet.

Sputtering, Draco sprayed a thick layer of blood on the once white walls. He fell forward his pale hands glittering under the thin layer of light coming from under the door.

"Draco?"

The door flew open; there she was; Draco's eyes burned in the harsh light.

"Draco, oh dear!" She gracefully fell down onto her knees and reached out to touch him. Her hands, once as cold as ice, felt like liquid nitrogen on his clothed skin. "Why did you run away? I knew that this was going to happen! I told you not to run away!"

Draco coughed again; blood covered the white of his fiancé's gown. She looked at it with a hungry glare. Her lips parted slightly showing elongated eye teeth which she massaged with her tongue as Draco continued to cough up blood.

In as little as three minutes, pints of blood had been regurgitated; pints and pints of blood seeped into the carpet, oozing when Draco moved his hand from one position on the carpet to the next. And yet, it kept coming, each time turning a more silvery color, until finally, the scarlet color had vanished, leaving behind a silver substance, slick to the touch.

"Circe, what did you do to me?" Draco asked voice weak, and faint with lack of blood. He collapsed onto the carpet watching his fiancé who kept dipping her pointer finger into the stain and pulling it up, placing it softly in her mouth where she proceeded to suck all of Draco's blood from her shimmering skin. Her eyes were alight with need; a burning red color that matched the blood on the floor almost perfectly.

"Draco? Circe? What's going on?" Narcissa Malfoy called from down the hall.

Circe whipped around; Draco could hear her black curls slap against the creamy white skin of her neck and cheek. His heart beat fluttered, skipped and then stopped completely. But he didn't die. He took in a steady breath and instantly he could smell the perfume that his mother wore, even though she was still down the hall, more than fifty feet away. He could smell Circe and a soft floral scent that encompassed her neck; He stared at her throat, the tendons that were stretched as she looked down the hall at Narcissa. He could smell all one hundred and twenty nine people downstairs mingling.

Everything was in slow motion. Narcissa was opening her mouth to speak, her eyes just registering the horror before her when Circe stood, mouth agape, baring her teeth in a threatening way, as if to bite. Draco was up and on his feet before he really could think of what to do. Circe lunged and Draco went after her, tackling her in mid-air right before his mother who was slowly falling back, her arms spread as though to block something from hitting her face.

Draco felt his hands grasp Circe's thin neck and twist. Her body went limp; she fell roughly on the floor, her head twisted backwards on her body so that her chin nearly touched her shoulder blade, and jammed up into the corner of the floor and the wall.

"Draco?" Narcissa whispered her voice void.

Whipping around, Draco looked deep into his mother's eyes and found that his chest was heaving, the excitement he had previously been feeling, fleeing from his body.

"Draco, what have you done?"

And just like that, the reality of his situation settled deep into the pit of his stomach. Circe's body was dead; _she_ was dead. He would go to Azkaban for the crime he had just committed. Vampires were not so easily let off. In fact, they were prosecuted more heavily.

"Mother, what do I do?" Draco asked, turning on the woman who cowered back against the wall in slight apprehension. He noticed the silver blood that stained his pale hands that fell to the carpet in soft _plip, plops,_ and gathered in tiny puddles about his feet. "Mother?"

"Draco, I-"

"Narcissa, Draco, what are you doing?"

The pair turned and met the cold grey eyes of Lucius.

"Boy, what have you done?" Lucius asked dazed. His eyes glazed over; his snake headed cane hanging limply from his hand.

Draco blinked heavily and stared at the cold body of his fiancé. He knelt down beside her and moved a stray curl from her face, leaving behind a trace of her own blood. Her blue eyes reflected the light of the hall.

"Lucius, he can't go to Azkaban!" Narcissa exclaimed. She stood close to her husband, looking fearfully at her son who continued to touch Circe's hair. "Do you know what they would do to him in that place?"

"Well, Merlin, Narcissa, what do you propose we do?" Lucius countered, holding a hand out to their son who had stopped playing with Circe's hair and was currently standing, sniffing the air, much like he was following a scent.

"Let's make a crime scene!" Narcissa exclaimed. "We'll say that somehow she died! Anything! Don't make my baby go to jail! I don't know if I could handle that!"

Lucius ran a hand through his long blond hair. He was torn between what he knew would lead them to a quick trip to jail, the pleasing of his wife, and the life of his only son. Inside, his stomach was doing somersaults. What would they do if Draco went to prison? It would be a life sentence, that was for sure; a life for a life… but what of their estate? What of his inheritance which would be robbed of him once he was arrested? Surely Lucius could not allow it to fall into the hands of the Blacks! What with that half-breed thing that had the audacity to call herself a witch! No, the Malfoy estate would stay within Malfoy blood, plain and simple.

"We'll devise something," Lucius grumbled. "Narcissa, you should return to your guests and tell them that Circe is indisposed. It would be prudent to see that all of the guests realize that Draco will be at her side for the remainder of the night. I'll be in my study, thinking."

Narcissa nodded her head, and gave her son a fearful look before turning and gathering her skirts in her hands, took off down the hall back towards her guests.

Rounding on his son, Lucius pointed an accusing finger at his face and said, "Since it is your fault that she is dead, you will be the one to move her and place the study in the exact way that I please."

"Yes, father," Draco replied. Now that it came down to it, the thought of touching her dead body was enough to make him want to puke again and again.

Circe's head rolled around on her disconnected spine when Draco slid his arms underneath her rubbery neck and bony knees, the joints rubbing together, grating on the edge of Draco's sanity.

♥

It happened rather quickly. The days seemed to stretch on into eternity; much longer than they ever had when he was human.

The day after Circe was killed, his mother and father played out their ill-conceived plan. Draco knew from the start that it would go awry, and in the aftermath, at his trial, he pleaded not guilty and cried, though only to save his own skin. The Wizengamot, knowing the full effect this must have on any man, especially a Malfoy man, to reduce him to something as shameful as crying, was obviously someone of a pure heart. They let him go.

But Lucius and Narcissa fell headlong into their fate. What more could have befallen them? Not only accused, and accurately so, of being Death Eaters, they were wrongly accused of killing their own soon-to-be daughter-in-law! Draco found pity upon both, mostly for their uncharacteristically kind act, and pleaded on behalf of his mother.

In the days that followed, Draco busied himself incessantly. He couldn't bear to be in the West wing where the silver blood of Circe and his own crimson stained the floor, quite possibly for the rest of eternity. He could only read and read and research. There was nothing more to life anyway. He returned to school after the Christmas holidays and found that it was harder to blend into the crowd than before. Everyone knew; knew of how the proud Draco Malfoy had cried like an insolent child before a group of grown men. The only one that didn't laugh behind their hand was Granger.

Immediately, Draco went to Professor Snape and told him of his predicament. And in return, Snape gave the boy a draught that would sustain his lusts for blood and fill his nostrils so as to keep out the scent of his prey. And so far it had worked better than even Draco had imagined. Even in his conquests, it had succeeded in sparing the dumb chits lives.

It worked all the way up till he had to work with Granger in Transfiguration.

Hermione's face was weary and drawn tight. Black encircled her somber eyes and made them seem dead; all life faded away from them. Draco found that in the course of two seconds and a look inside her bookworm head, (a new talent he found quite pleasing), that the reason to be her two dolt-headed friends. She was sad, and fearful. Draco was pleased to note that it would be that she would die without ever having found The One.

The potion Snape had given him was supposed to block ALL smells. And thus far, it had worked exceedingly well. That is, until McGonagall placed him and Granger together, something about Unity bullshit that always had his blood boiling. Forget the fact that he had snogged her silly for a while three months ago.

Everything was just fine and dandy right up to the part where he made Granger leave her seat in the front for his in the back. He noticed her hair, pulled tightly back into a pony-tail. That, her shirt which was tighter up top than at the bottom, was stained with spots of ink. And her hands; never in his life had he seen such small hands. Delicate, just like the rest of her.

And then she sat down on the stool next to him and the full extent of just why she allured him hit him like a ton of bricks. Where everyone else had a type of floral scent to them, she smelt like cinnamon. Cinnamon and vanilla; the smells he remembered most from his childhood. Just like that, he almost lost control. The skin of her neck, tanner than most others, was just a foot away. How long would it take for the rest of the class to notice that he had killed the smart bookworm? How long would it take for him to kill the witnesses?

No, he couldn't do that. His heart wouldn't let him. True, the thing hadn't beaten in more than a month, if not years, but that wasn't the point. Something told him that no matter what he did, if Granger died, whether it be by his hand, or another, he would die as well.

What was happening to him?! This in itself was unnerving! This hadn't happened before when they were making out till Kingdom come just about everywhere in the castle.

Granger smoothed out a piece of parchment, her head turned towards her friends, and so distracted was her mind that she never realized just how close to Malfoy she was until her hand collided with his own. Violent tremors flooded them both from where they were connected, though Hermione's mind only registered it as a change in space. She jerked her hand away and almost muttered sorry, till she remembered just who it was.

Malfoy's mind was on the fritz, literally. He had been handling all of this pretty damn well in his opinion, but the feel of her skin on his was enough to almost make him push her to the ground and do all kinds of horrid things to her… like _kiss_ her in areas that had strictly been FORBIDDEN before. Draco shuddered, though he wasn't sure if it was because he was disgusted with the fact he wanted to kiss the mudblood, or if because that wasn't just the only thing he wanted to do to her.

"Are you even paying attention?" Hermione's voice broke through the barrier in his mind.

"No," He answered truthfully, turning to look at her. Hermione's brown eyes were alight with anger.

"How are we supposed to do this if the other isn't even paying attention?!" Hermione screeched. Draco kept the pained expression from his face.

"We could always just meet in the library if we don't finish, Granger," Malfoy said nonchalantly as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Don't get your knickers all in a twist."

"If we don't finish, Malfoy, you'll be the only one meeting in the library, and you'll be doing this all by yourself!" Hermione huffed under her breath, turning to the text and opening it to a page towards the back.

"You know, Granger, McGonagall might not be too happy about that," Draco said, leaning in close to Hermione's warm body. She shivered at the coldness that permeated off of him and scowled when they met eyes.

"Fine," was all she snarled at him when the class bell rang and everyone got up to leave.

"Seven thirty, Granger!" Malfoy called as she hurried out of the room. Hermione raised a hand in response, and Draco sighed in relief. Finally, maybe, he would be able to satisfy this lust that had been plaguing him for so long. For the past three months he had ignored her, treated her like filth, but he knew it deep down in his bones, that tonight was the night he was going to do it. He would either discover who he was meant to be with, or he would end up killing her by drinking all of her blood.

She would never come.

♥

_Present…_

"What?" Hermione asked. "What did you just say?"

Tom sighed and repeated his question. "Do you love him?"

Hermione scoffed, opening her mouth to reply, but nothing came out. At the back of her mind, there was a nagging feeling that said, "Yes, of course I hate the little twit!" But another told her, "No, you don't hate him. If it came down to it, you wouldn't be able to live without him!"

What was frightening was how true they both were.

It was horrible, the sure expectance on Tom's face as Hermione deliberated. She saw the resignation on his features. The blank stare that told him he truly believed that she did love Draco Malfoy. How could a woman who didn't spend this much time even considering the subject?

"No," Hermione replied finally.

Tom's face lifted; her insides clenched together in utter turmoil. What was this pain? Not only was her head pounding with a ache that permeated throughout her entire body, but this dull ache where her heart was throbbed through her pulse. It was as if she had ripped her own heart out and placed it in the blender, watching it as it was cut up into nothing more than a mushy, red pulp.

Tom's face lit up in a brilliant smile. One that shone brighter perhaps than that of the fire in the grate. Hermione smiled back half-heartedly, closing her eyes regretfully when Tom leaned in and placed a kiss on her lips.

The first thought through her mind was that it was plain. Nothing happened; no fire, no insanity. It was almost as though she were kissing the wall; there wasn't any emotion.

It was only after Tom had left and she fell into bed fully clothed that she let the truth wash over her. The truth that she had been attempting to deny for as long as she could remember.

"Yes," She whispered into the still darkness of her room. "I do love Draco Malfoy."

**A/N: Hey guys, I tried to get this in as fast as I could, but my mum doesn't believe in the computer… :[ and along with having summer school to graduate this august, one of my best friends died, so its been really hard to concentrate on writing. If the pieces get a little morose for a while here, I'm terribly sorry, it's just the mood I'm in now. **

**R&R!**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Hmmmm… What to say, what to say…? Y'all are reviewing so it's not like I can be mad 'bout that… Hmmmm… Je n'ai sais pas[Or however you spell it…:D**

_You're killing me sweetly with love, love, love, love_ – Sara Bareilles

Chapter Ten: Bottle it Up, Love

Hermione sighed as she walked through the mumbo jumbo of office cubicles. Anywhere, somewhere, she could go just to have a bit of peace and quiet. People constantly knocked on her office door. They constantly asked her pointless questions. My God, one person even asked her if they could go to the bathroom in the middle of a meeting! She had felt like a preschool teacher for the slightest of moments and thanked Merlin that she had chosen the field of journalism. What was this world coming to?! Could no one see that Hermione was having a SLIGHT mental breakdown at the moment?! NO?! _Take a deep breath, Hermione_, was her mantra as she weaved through the cubicles.

She was stopped in her quest for solitude by Grace Harkey, a fellow reporter who asked questions of approval on everything. "Hey, Hermione, I was wondering if you could just maybe take a look at these files for me."

"Look, Grace, now is not a good time," Hermione said, as she continued walking down the hall. She placed the back of her hand, cool to the touch, against her forehead, willing away yet another migraine. "I'll- look I'll see what I can do tomorrow or something…"

Hermione blindly turned a corner and fell against a door. She placed her hands over her ears, attempting to block out all noise from the offices around her. Standing unsteadily, she walked blindly down the hall, her arms spread to each side to break her fall, should one occur. She wasn't prepared for the startling white hand that crossed into her peripheral vision or when said hand wrapped around her wrist, drawing her into a darkly lit room.

"Hello again, Hermione," A slick voice said. Hermione's migraine slowly, but surely began to fade as she looked up into his eyes. He had that effect on her.

Exasperated she cried, "God, Malfoy, what do you want?"

"Just to see you," He replied, bending closer to her and placing a row of kisses along her jaw bone. "And to help you get rid of that god awful migraine you're having."

"How did you know I have a migraine?" Hermione asked bewildered as Malfoy drew her closer, turning so that her back was to the wall.

"Just an instinct," Was all Malfoy replied as he drew in for a kiss.

"Wait, what if someone finds us?" Hermione whispered, not daring to utter the name of a certain someone she most defiantly DID NOT want to find them.

Malfoy shrugged, "So? You never cared about that before."

"Yes, when we were in school and most people our age were too thick to remember to use an unlocking charm!" Hermione shot back.

"Merlin, Granger, we're adults!" Malfoy said, backing away from her slightly so that they were looking each other eye to eye. "I think it's OK for adults to have a relationship."

"Not for an engaged man and a taken woman to, it's not!" Hermione fired back, pushing at Malfoy's shoulders.

"Who are you dating?" Malfoy snarled, grasping her wrists tightly in each one of his hands. Pain shot up through Hermione's left arm, almost as though all the bones were slowly, but surely, being broken. Recognition floated across Malfoy's pointed features. "It's that Tom bloke isn't it?"

Hermione let out a soft murmur of pain, afraid to move her hand or wrist for fear of damaging it more. She could hear the soft pops and cracks her bones made as Malfoy's fingers tightened. His eyes glowed a soft crimson color, the red staining the circle around his iris and fading into the grey, seeping into his light eyes like blood.

_Vampires have immense strength…They are dangerous when angry, or in the threatening of what they feel is theirs; their mates…_

"Malfoy, you're hurting me," Hermione whimpered, covering Malfoy's hand lightly with her own. His skin burned like liquid nitrogen on her skin; she recoiled shaking her hand as though to rid herself of the sensation coursing across her palm.

"Answer me," Draco snarled, exposing pearly white, elongated eye teeth. Hermione let out a gasp of pain as Malfoy increased the pressure on her thin wrist. "Tell me, Hermione, just who it is you think of at night when you fall to sleep. Who do you want to be with?"

"You act like we're dating or something!" Hermione exclaimed, moving her body when Malfoy moved his own, so as little to disrupt her destroyed wrist. "I'm not your property, Malfoy!"

Suddenly, Malfoy released her wrist, pressing her body flat against the wall with his own. He leaned in close to her, looking down his pointed nose into her eyes. Hermione's wrist throbbed achingly. She willed the gathering tears in her eyes to disappear; she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of making her cry.

"I could never be with you, Malfoy," Hermione whispered harshly, her heart pounding frantically in her chest. Butterflies engulfed her stomach, flying with such speed and ferocity, that when they collided with the dome of her belly, she swore she would have been able to see it were she looking.

Malfoy's crimson eyes narrowed; he looked her full on, no longer using his height to the advantage. He seemed defeated; his possessive air faded, along with his demeaning glare. The harsh red color began to drain just as surely as it had come, fading back into his normal grey.

Sucking in a gulp of air, Hermione continued, telling herself that this was right, there was no other alternative. "How could I ever live with, marry, or love someone who hurt me without a second thought? Who could ever want someone so powerful that at any second they could be killed with a single blow?"

Hermione saw the change in his eyes; they grew morose, dulling in color. Her shoulders shook as she continued, her heart thudding so softly and slowly she felt that she must be experiencing some type of pre-death phenomena. At any second she would collapse dead on the ground.

"I could never love you, Malfoy, simply because you think only of yourself," Hermione whispered, her voice so harsh, she couldn't decipher it as her own. "You would never love me as much as you love yourself."

Scoffing, Malfoy drew himself to his full height; the muscles in his arms flexed underneath his taunt, pale skin. "Is that really what you think?" His balled up fist collided with the plaster wall, near inches from Hermione's face; she cowered in fear, holding up her right arm and mutilated wrist as some type of protection. "You think that I'm just some spoiled little rich kid, who would as soon as kill you as look at you?"

Answering wasn't an option. Hermione was smart enough to recognize a rhetorical question when she heard one, and wasn't about to talk when Malfoy was so dangerous.

Squeezing her eyes as tightly closed as she could, Hermione silently prayed to every god she knew of that Malfoy would leave her unscathed. But he surprised her. What she had expected was some type of blow, fearing one that would kill her, or one that would leave her paralyzed or something of that nature. Instead, he gently, encased her in his arms, his skin flooding with sudden warmth, that despite Hermione's will had her wishing to never be let go.

"I can't help it sometimes," He said softly. "It's not a conscious thought… You just make me so angry at times; it's like you don't understand what you do to me."

"What _do_ I do to you, Malfoy?" Hermione whispered, looking anywhere but his eyes. She cradled her wrist against her body, shielding it from Malfoy with her other arm.

Hermione wasn't sure if he had heard her, for he never answered her, at least not for some time. She leaned her head against his chest, feeling some type of ethereal calm wash over her. Her wrist throbbed, but Hermione could only register it in the back of her mind. It throbbed dully, like a headache that ceased to exist with pain medication. Malfoy's hands roamed up and down her back, catching the hem of shirt each time he drew them up her skin. Each time his skin touched her own it was like another being over took Hermione's mind. She could only think of kissing him, loving him, anything to help this emotion escape and feel a release.

Placing one finger under her chin, Malfoy drew Hermione's face up so that he was looking deep into her eyes. He found confusion, as what was expected, but he also saw passion and some other indescribable emotion that overtook her at times. If he thought back to it, the emotion reminded him of all the girls back in school he had touched in an attempt to find The One, only this time, the burning desire to be as close to him as possible was coupled with another; dare he say it, but it looked like adoration, something he had never seen in a woman's eyes before when he touched them. Hermione was melting into him; drawn in on the emotions she could no longer fight.

"What do I do to you, Malfoy?" Hermione repeated, wrapping her good fingers around his back, gripping the fabric of his coat in her hands tightly, as if to keep him from escaping.

An electric shock filled them both when he ran his hands through her hair and down her neck. A dull ache filled the pit of his stomach, causing extra saliva to fill his mouth and wet his eye teeth till they were slick; preparations for an easy bite.

Lowering his face to hers, Malfoy kissed her softly and briefly. The ache intensified ten fold. Hermione's hips pressed against his own, her breathing becoming erratic. She stood higher on her tip toes so that she could look directly at his eyes.

"What do I do to you, Malfoy?" She asked a third time, brushing her lips ever so softly across his own.

"You make me…" Malfoy began, pressing her against the wall and running his hands down the front of her shirt. Hermione looked up at him through her lashes, biting on her bottom lip. "Crazy," He finished before capturing her mouth in his own.

There was one thing that Malfoy always remembered about Hermione, even from when they were in school. She was good at everything. And that included kissing. It was like a natural talent, one that he appreciated every time he had cornered her in a deserted classroom or broom closet, feeding her the sob story of his dead fiancé, but really just craving the taste of her mouth, and the brief taste he had had of her blood. It was unnatural how insane she drove him; never before had he felt this way over a girl, and never had he thought he would have to.

And now, as he pressed his body so firmly against her own that not a breath of air would have been able to even think of passing between them, he recalled the taste of her blood, mingled with the taste of her skin. His teeth began to ache, his lower stomach ached, his hands were near frantic on her skin, doing things of their accord without the consent of the rational side of his brain.

All sounds blocked out of his head. The only thing he could concentrate on was the woman before him who was currently competing for leadership of his mouth, her right hand clenched around his jacket.

Malfoy broke away from her mouth and kissed down her neck. His eyes were attuned to the semi-darkness of the closet they were standing in. He could see the curve of her throat into her shoulder, and there, just about the middle, a tiny circular scar he had left her when he first bit her all those years ago. He remembered the way she had jumped back out of his reach, just enough time for her to miss the poison that was coursing down his incisors, flooding his mouth and even spilling onto his bottom lip. The same was happening now as he covered the spot with his lips. Hermione trembled slightly beneath him, turning her head so that he had better access to the spot.

"Draco," She whispered, her voice breaking slightly with emotion. She could feel him breathing out onto her neck; feel his lips that encased the scar he had given her back in seventh year; feel his eyelashes when he closed his eyes and opened them again. "Draco," She repeated, this time her voice louder, more forceful.

An odd feeling was coursing through her body. Her pulse quickened to the point of fear for her heart bursting. Her right hand snapped up; her fingers entangling themselves into Malfoy's locks. He continued sucking over her scar, sending shock waves of pleasure through her body. Her knees trembled; her palms grew sweaty with anticipation.

Malfoy positioned himself so that his knees were between Hermione's, a precaution of what was about to come. He covered her hands with his own, listening but disregarding the gasp of pain from Hermione when he took her left hand.

"Draco, what are you doing?" Hermione whispered, turning her head as if to look. Malfoy growled when Hermione turned, causing the skin of her neck to leave his lips. A large red hickey formed clearly on her throat; Hermione wiped off some of the leftover spit with her shoulder, before restating her question.

Licking his lips, Malfoy kissed her own, slipping his tongue into her mouth when she opened it in surprise. Both of their bodies trembled with this new feeling, one that neither of them had felt in so long. Hermione nearly collapsed as she kissed him back, all thoughts washed from her mind. Malfoy released her arms and cupped her face gently in his hands, rubbing his thumbs across the crests of her cheeks.

Quick as a flash, he bent down to the nape of her neck, covered the hickey with his lips and opened his mouth, the white incisors flashing slightly in the soft light before disappearing into the creamy white of Hermione's skin.

Gasping, Hermione went to knee Malfoy, but found that he was still between her legs. She was paralyzed as a warm feeling washed over her, quickly replaced by a cold more freezing than what she imagined the Artic to be like. Her body began to violently shake.

Malfoy relished in the taste of her blood. Others tasted metallic, like copper; Hermione tasted like cinnamon, something he loved. He had read about this. One way to know for sure who your mate was was by the taste of their blood. It was supposed to be your favorite taste, the thing that made you happy. Sure cinnamon was a strange thing to make one happy, but it was a smell he could associate with his childhood, a good memory with his mother.

Malfoy released his bite on her, pulling back and covering the two puncture marks with his fingers. Idly, he licked the remained blood from the corners of his mouth, staring at Hermione's face. Hermione's eyes were squeezed shut, her body still shaking violently. Malfoy supported her, applying pressure to the bite mark with one hand and idly stroking her cheek with the other.

"It'll be over soon, love, soon."

Hermione's stomach turned, her head falling back against the plaster wall.

"What have you done?!" A shrill voice cried somewhere to her left. She felt the absence of Malfoys hands on her and the distinct sound of someone yelling, coupled with another and then another.

"Draco," Hermione whispered, as she collapsed to the ground, blood seeping out of the crescent shaped mark on her neck.

Malfoy was shoved out of the way, held to one spot by an array of wands as Tom knelt next to Hermione. He growled lowly, his fists in tight balls. Pansy stood in the doorway, looking in amazement between Malfoy and Hermione, her black eyes registering a lot more than Draco was comfortable with.

"Hermione, can you hear me?" Tom whispered, stroking her hair and turning her on her back. "Hermione?"

Pain washed over Hermione, engulfing every fiber of her being. What was worse were Tom's hands on her instead of Draco's. She desperately wanted to feel him, to feel the pain ebb away by his closeness. She called his name again, her voice faint. Her heart began to frantically beat faster and faster, as Tom stroked her hair again, running his fingers slightly through the strands. Hermione felt a growl rumble somewhere deep in her throat. Tom's hand paused in her hair.

"Hermione?" He whispered, turning her head so that when she opened her eyes they were looking at each other. "What's wrong, Hermione, tell me."

Hermione shoved Tom's hand away from her head and turned over before throwing up blood onto the once clean cream carpet.

**A/N**

**OOHHHHH… What's going to happen next, I wonder????**

**OK, so I know that this is a little bit short… I'm really sorry. This chapter was EXCEPTIONALLY hard to write. The next one will be longer I promise:**

**R&R!**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Ohhhh, I lurrvvvvv this story!! It's been so much fun to write:**

**Disclaimer: I have a confession to make. My real name is J.K. Rowling and I'm stinking rich, plus I love to write fanfiction and screwing over the lives that I've already created! If I were really J.K. Rowling, I'd be in England, eating loooooaaaaaddddddssssss of chocolate and bossing people around to do my bidding. Unfortunately… I live in the U.S. and my name is most defiantly not J.K. Rowling… It's Kelsey… Kind of plain… **

_Love is a burning thing, and it makes a fiery ring, bound by wild desire, I fell in to a ring of fire... _–Johnny Cash

Chapter Eleven: Ring of Fire

Hermione Granger prided herself on three things; one that she kept a cool head in a tough situation, two, that she had the mental capability to solve the problem of said tough situation, and three that she could almost always fix it in some form or fashion. She could solve a riddle faster than anyone she knew; she could read a book on some science that only a genius would understand the first time and then turn around and explain it in plain English to the person next to her; anything she tried, she was good at. She was just talented.

In everything but love.

A simple word that has brought the destruction of many a life. Helen of Sparta only became Helen of Troy because she fell in love with Paris and ran away with him. She knew that she was endangering the lives of thousands of people, and yet she did it anyway, because of the simple fact that she _loved_ Paris. Nothing could take that away.

But should someone mention the word LOVE to Hermione Granger and she would most likely scoff and turn the opposite way, choosing instead to discuss the things she knew to be a proven thing. And let's face it; love is fickle. You can hate and you can love, and sometimes you can do both at once. Hermione just couldn't see it like that. She didn't understand that love and hate _were_ so closely related that often time, they were undistinguishable. Her brain, for all of its smarts, couldn't just rely on something that would eventually fade, because when you think about, love fades, and love sucks, so why would anyone want to be in it? All it is is an emotion that barges head-long into your life and disrupts EVERYTHING you've planned.

Every time Lavender Brown or Parvati Patil came in bawling their eyes out over So-and-So who they caught cheating with Someone-or-Another, Hermione simply rolled her eyes and said, "I told you so." She wanted to pull off a smirk to rival Malfoy's and fold her arms indignantly across her chest, mocking them for their stupidity in getting their heart broken. But, a certain part of her wondered, what was it like? What was it like to give your heart away even if just for the briefest of moments and to become so _vulnerable_?

Lavender once said as she lay cuddled beneath a mountain of blankets, surrounded by molted and soggy tissues, that love was the best feeling in the world. She'd die just to feel True Love; she'd do anything in the world to feel it in all of its glory. Looking Hermione straight in the eye, she said in perhaps the most serious moment of her life, that one day Hermione'd find love, and when she did, she better hope and pray that he didn't go and break her heart. Whether you want it or not, your heart doesn't always listen to the mind it's attached to. And Parvati agreed, shaking her head solemnly so that her satiny black curtain of hair swayed gently about her shoulders.

And Hermione had lain awake for three nights afterward, praying that she would discover the truth; that it would come barreling into her, sweep her off of her feet and prove to her that such a feeling was as great as everyone said it was. She wanted to be proven wrong, just this once! She wanted to know that someone else carried the smarts on their shoulders, and didn't rely on her for everything.

The next day she "bumped" into Malfoy in the library.

Coincidence? That was the first thought to pass through her mind, seeing as how Malfoy had been acting strangely for quite some time now, and she was looking for some type of adventure that would satisfy her need to discover love. And maybe, just maybe, Malfoy was the way to finding that ethereal happiness. Sure, he was Malfoy, and he was selfish and unkind at times, but so was she. She back-talked him just as unfairly as he did her. She called him dirty names just as he did her, causing her to think, just who was she to say that Malfoy was wrong? Here she was, the very epitome of a hypocrite, badmouthing someone for the very same thing she was doing.

Against her better judgment she gave Malfoy a chance. She continued to meet him in deserted classrooms, and alcoves, broom closets and parts of the library that had layers of dust caked on the shelves and on their robes by the time both of them had left.

What surprised her most about Malfoy was that whenever he touched her, he was gentle about it. He wasn't rough and crude, like was the rumor that followed him throughout the halls. He even became the slightest bits shy when Hermione touched him in areas that usually had a man stripping bare and shagging the very thing that was turning them on so. Malfoy was someone, Hermione hated to think of it like this, but found it impossible to keep from it, that she could imagine herself falling in love with. He paid attention to her, never once asking for help with school work. Malfoy didn't get his fill and then never come back, but he didn't keep it spaced out either. It was like he _couldn't_ get enough of her, like he never wanted to. He wanted the feeling to last and last.

Yet, Hermione was afraid to give him that. She kept her hard exterior, refusing to allow herself to believe that the fluttering her heart made whenever she saw him was love. It was merely… attraction, for lack of a better word. Even when she ran from the common room late at night, telling her friends that she Just Had To Go, and That There Was Some Very Important Head's Business To Attend To, she made herself believe that it was her hormones getting the best of her. Lavender Brown was just insane, like she had always believed from the very first day at Hogwarts.

But then Malfoy just had to go and say IT one day. That dreaded phrase that made Hermione question Just About EVERYTHING.

They were in the alcove next to Ravenclaw Tower. Hermione was late to her heads meeting wit Anthony Goldstein, but Malfoy wouldn't let her leave. He kept kissing her and running his hands through her hair to the point where it was more of a giant frizz ball atop her head.

"Malfoy, I have to go," Hermione whispered, pulling away slightly, fingering the rubber band tie on her wrist. She began to pull her hair up into a pony-tail when Malfoy reached up and said, "No, I like it better down."

"You like it better down?" Hermione repeated, her voice emotionless. She stared Malfoy in the eye, telling herself that the fluttering in her chest was just a spasmodic organ that was currently on the fritz, like the heater in the Head Girl's room. "I didn't think you like my hair at all."

"It varies with every passing day," Malfoy had replied. He was pressing her up against the wall, running his fingers lightly up and down her neck.

"Malfoy, I really have to go," Hermione said, making to leave.

"Don't," Malfoy said hurriedly, grasping her shoulders in his hands and planting a kiss on her lips. They stayed like that for a couple of minutes, each one competing for leadership, till Malfoy abruptly pulled away. "I love you," he whispered, voice so soft that Hermione could have mistaken it for the wind.

"What?" Hermione said, pulling back.

"What, what?" Malfoy replied, pulling even farther away. A dull pink was staining his cheeks, his eyes turning a light grey, almost as white as the snow falling on the other side of the window.

"You just said-"

Malfoy interrupted. "No I didn't."

"Yes, yes you did."

"Look, Granger, don't you have a heads meeting to go to?" Malfoy said nervously, backing up and grabbing his bag from where he had dropped it off of the floor. "I'll see you later, I guess."

"He loves me," Hermione whispered as Malfoy stalked down the hall. Her heart nearly exploded with the thought. Little did she know, that the reason her heart was having a panic attack was for the reason of she, herself, loving him as well.

♥

"Miss Granger? Miss Granger, are you awake?"

Hermione groaned, squeezing her closed eyes together as tight as they would go. Her mouth was parched; there was a dull ache in the pit of her stomach.

She was just about to open her eyes when a hand collided with the side of her face, jarring her fully awake. Her eyes snapped open to reveal a middle-aged woman with a small pointed face. Her features were all angles, so sharp that Hermione feared she could cut her if they got too close. When the nurse saw that Hermione's eyes were open, she stood straight, one eyebrow rising to form a right angle on her forehead.

Hermione made to raise her arm to her face to rub the sleep out of her eyes, but found that she couldn't move it at all. She tried the other and found that one too immobile. Looking to her right and her left, Hermione saw that her arms and even her legs were strapped to the bed.

Breathing heavily, Hermione looked over at the angled woman and growled menacingly deep in her throat. Her stomach growled, twisting and contorting so painfully in her stomach, a monster waiting to bite, to suck, to feed. Hermione bared her teeth at the woman and made to jump from the bed despite the fact that she was tied down.

The nurse jumped back in surprise, knocking over a tray of glass bottles in her surprise.

"Doctor!"

Hermione began to thrash and writhe on the bed, twisting her limbs and the bed sheets. The smell of bleach was most prominent in her nostrils, though when the nurse moved past the heaters, a blast of her scent was thrust right under Hermione's nose. She stopped moving completely, her eyes narrowed and focused only on the older woman, who had in turn stopped when she heard silence and looked at the girl.

"Miss Granger?" The nurse whispered. "What is it, Miss Granger?"

The smell was overpowering. Saliva flooded her mouth. Her tongue flicked furiously against her newly elongated incisors, massaging the poison up and down the length of her teeth. She opened her mouth and hissed slightly, unable to prevent herself from attempting to attract this woman.

The nurse's eyes glazed over. Her hands fluttered nervously at her sides, both of them gripping her apron tightly in her hands. Hermione could hear her swallowing nervously every few seconds.

"I-" The nurse began, never finishing her sentence as Hermione managed to slyly pull her hands from the restraints. Never breaking eye contact with the nurse, she blindly undid the ones at her feet and stood from the bed.

That smell… what was it? It was floral… metallic… acidic…. Hermione longed to taste the nurses' blood on her lips, to feel it wash over her tongue and slide down her throat. She kept walking ever closer to the nurse as more and more saliva flooded her already moist mouth.

Just as Hermione reached the old woman, bending down to her neck to bite, a hand reached out and grabbed her shoulder, roughly pulling her away. Hermione scratched the person who had grabbed her, roaring in indignation that he had stopped her. She bit and scratched at every part of his body, a red sheen overtaking her vision.

"Hermione!" A rough voice said. Hermione stopped suddenly. The red sheen didn't disappear, but her heart shuddered, never beating.

"Draco," She whispered lovingly, smiling at him. The scratches she had given him were closing up seemingly on their own accord, the sleeve of his coat hanging limp down his deltoid.

"Here," He said, thrusting something into her hands.

What ever it was, it was bloody, the smell of it overtaking even that of the nurse. Hermione dove it, biting all over it, squirting more blood around the room than she was getting into her mouth.

"Slow down," Draco said lifting her face from the mutilated being and then producing a side that was unscathed. "Bit once and then suck."

It was like a babe that first fed from its mother's breast. She couldn't get the hang of it, only drinking, not chewing. Blood seeped down her chin, falling onto her white hospital gown. The blood ran down her esophagus, trickling into her stomach like a leaky faucet. It tasted different than it smelt as well. The metallic-y smell was only that, a smell. Blood was sweet, filling, though as Hermione finished, she found it only temporarily satisfying.

"Hermione," Draco said, taking the animal from her hands. Hermione looked down at it, registering it as a rabbit. The red sheen that had been covering her eyes, slowly fading, till everything came back in Technicolor. Draco pinned her arms to her sides with his hands, using his full strength. "Get the doctor," Draco said to the nurse who was cowering in the corner of the room. She nodded and virtually ran from the room at top speed, Hermione watching as though she were moving in slow motion. "Look at me, Hermione."

"What did you do to me?" Hermione whispered harshly, turning back to face Draco.

"I…" Draco began, trailing off before he could finish his sentence.

Tears welled in Hermione's eyes as the seriousness of her situation hit her like a wall of bricks. They spilled over the edges of her eyes, coursing down her cheeks in fat rivulets.

"Why?" Hermione whispered.

Draco solemnly looked up into her eyes and said, "Because you're mine."

♥

The entire staff at the hospital was congregated into one room that was locked and protected with many spells as Draco carted Hermione out of her room. She had been placed in a deserted hall on a deserted floor, far beneath the confines of the normal hospital. It was dark and dank and smelled of mold and mice, something that made Hermione's stomach clench in hunger.

"Where are we going?" Hermione whispered, though she knew that Draco would hear her even over the clanking of the pipes upstairs and the bangs that came from the loading dock in the back.

"Home," Draco replied, holding her firmly to his side.

"I don't have a home," Hermione said sadly.

Draco looked over at Hermione, not responding. He led her into a dusty old room. It smelt like human skin, which when Hermione thought about it, was all that dust was. She crinkled her nose in disgust as Draco led her over to a fireplace, flames dancing merrily in the grate.

"My home is your home now, Hermione," Draco said softly, taking a pinch of powder and tossing it into the grate. The flames roared far louder than she ever remembered, causing her to place her hands over her ears in an attempt to stifle the noise.

"Mi casa, es su casa," Hermione said dully as they stepped into the flames and they were whisked away.

♥

Birds chirped merrily when Hermione stepped outside, her limbs shaking with excitement. Draco held her firmly by one hand

"I've charmed the grounds so that you can't leave my property, so don't try it unless you want to be shocked with enough force to kill any mortal," Draco said, watching Hermione as she eyed a pair rabbits at the edge of the woods, one hundred feet away. "Come back when you're satisfied; when you can't eat anymore."

Hermione turned to Draco. He took in her red eyes, wondering when the color would disappear altogether. She cocked her head to one side and said, "You seem sad."

"I'll miss you is all," Draco said.

"Come with me," Hermione said, smiling and pulling on his hand as she stepped down the top stair.

Draco shook his head. "I can't; not while you're like this." He neared her and placed a kiss on her forehead. "Have fun; I love you," He whispered, releasing her hand and watching as she took off for the woods, her gait ten times faster than it had previously been.

"Some day you'll be Hermione Granger again," He whispered as he stole back into the house, over to the writing desk where a letter lay waiting to be finished. He signed his name with a flourish at the bottom, folding the letter into threes before placing it in an envelope and writing the name of his former potion's master across the face.

Walking to the fireplace, he lit the grate wordlessly and threw in some powder, watching as the flames turned emerald. He tossed the letter in, saying the name of its destination before turning away and watching the perimeter of the woods.

**A/N: OK, I'm sorry if a lot of this doesn't make sense, and I'm also sorry if there are some grammar errors. I promised maybe a dozen people to get this out today, and I worked hard to make it as long as I did. Please R&R and tell me what you think! **

**Oh, and next chapter should be longer!**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: I'm sooooooooo mucho excited!! Not only did Harry Potter come out, but Eclipse comes out AUGUST 7!! YAY: I'm so easily excited…**

**Special thanks to EVERYONE who has reviewed! I love you all! You make my days a little brighter when I come home from school and see millions of reviews just waiting for me to read them. sigh Also, updates are going to be slower lately because graduation is coming up on August 16, and I'm Mistress of Ceremony. No idea what that is… But I have to make about five speeches or so. Please don't flame me for not updating faster- I'm really working:-**

**Shout out to leaf-blossom! Thanks for your insight:**

Disclaimer: Just to say this again! This story is derived not only from J.K. Rowling and her magnificent work on Harry Potter, to whom we are ALL addicted, but also to Stephenie Meyer, creator of Twilight, to which we _should_ be addicted! Two of the greatest writers, in my personal opinion:

_I said, baby, you know I'm going to leave you… I'll leave you in the summertime; leave you when the summer comes a rolling; leave you when the summer comes along. Baby, I don't want to leave you…_ -Led Zeppelin

Chapter Twelve: Electric Magic

She crashed through a thicket of thorny branches. Her hands were up before her face, shielding it from the thick stems that snapped back and cut open her palms, her bare shoulders, and snagged at her shirt, ripping holes and gashes into the once pristine fabric. Tears blinded her vision, falling down her face in hot steamy rivers. Suddenly, the foliage stopped and she fell through, unprepared, only to see a black glassy surface rising up to meet her. She fell into the water, limbs flailing, trying, searching, for the surface, to air. She paused. One by one agonizing second she let the remaining oxygen in her lungs seep out and watched as they followed one another single file to the surface. But even as she began to sink to the bottom of the lake, she knew her efforts were futile.

_What had she become?_

The question plagued her horrendously. It had been the cause of her pain for every day since the dreaded event had happened. It was the reason for her bitter tears after she killed; it was the unsurpassable blame she held towards everything that had been so wrongly taken, and it was the feeling of violation.

Violated.

It was a word that she most commonly labeled people who had been raped. Or abused. It had never belonged to her. Nope, never ever, and that was the way she liked it.

But to _be_ so _violated_. To walk the earth a living testimony to the evils that were bestowed upon people who did good things, who were good people… And what was she to be called now? What _was_ she now?

_A monster…_

She didn't deserve that title. She had worked every day of her life to make it a better place. She had sacrificed friends and family and love just to make sure that when someone else woke up the next morning they wouldn't feel like her. Instead, they would be happy and carefree and think, wow, about just being alive.

But not her. Not anymore at least. She wanted nothing more, she begged and she pleaded for it to happen, that she would just _die_ and cease to exist as this shameful thing. It was an abomination to everything she stood for. It was _unmentionable._

She looked through the murky water, her hair floating around her head like a dark halo. Relaxing her limbs, she watched her arms as they floated before her, suspended before her as though she were stuck in a gravity-free zone. Her clothes were bubbled with air and water; her skin looked pasty, unhealthy.

It was strange, this feeling of not breathing. Nothing about her changed. Her heart, should it have been beating, stood still and resolute in her chest. Her brain ticked, keeping her thinking and moving, but little else. Without the control of a heart it had taken a turn towards a sort of vacation. It worked less and infrequently. Her brain didn't scream at her to return to the surface and take a breath of precious air. Her brain didn't even register that she _wasn't_ breathing. Her lungs didn't burn and contract. They sat resolute on her diaphragm, saggy without the needed breath.

Determinedly, she brought her arms swiftly down, propelling her body to the surface. She swam and peddled faster until her head broke the surface and the cold air hit her like a brick wall, pushing back loose strands of hair and freezing the water droplets encrusting her eyebrows so that she looked like one of the people who died of hypothermia in Titanic. She shivered, not for the cold, for she could not feel it, but for the sadness of her life now. There was nothing to change what had come to her; nothing could ever be the same. As sad as it sounds, she would give anything to die of intense cold.

She lay on her back, floating over the still pond waters, her body prickling with the added coldness. The stars twinkled merrily from their place in the heavens. She hated them. Envied may even be a better word, for no one could harm them. They simply _died_ and fell through space and time. How she wished to die.

Engrossed as she was with the stars and heavens, that she did not hear the sounds of someone running through the undergrowth until they were right on her, and it was too late to run, to hide. They stopped themselves before the pond's edge, as if they knew it were there. She bobbed vertically in the water now, only her head showing. Despite the fact that she was perhaps the most dangerous thing in the woods, her human instinct of fear had not yet dwindled down in her body.

Two pale hands thrust forward through the branches and pushed them aside so that he could walk through. She narrowed her eyes when she saw him and slowly brought her hand up to her face, rubbing away the trails of blood from her chin and neck. She was embarrassed in front of him, he who was so perfect and had for the first time in their entwined lives, excelled in something before her.

"What?" She asked harshly, still not leaving the water. Her heart felt as though it were trying to beat, frantically pushing itself to move, to contract and shove the ice cold silvery substance in her veins to move.

The wind blew from behind him, billowing his clothes like a parachute in the sudden gust. His scent washed over her, almost knocking her back into the water with the sheer magnitude of what it did to her body. Her skin prickled with goose bumps; the roots of her hair stood on end, as though with excitement; her fingers itched to be free to roam over him, to feel him.

"What?" She repeated, this time with more force and yet more longing.

He shrugged his shoulders, never taking his eyes off of her as she floated in the water.

She wasn't satisfied with his answer. She sighed and jerked farther away in the water, scissor kicking her legs, and turning so that she could swim to the other side. Just as she was making to get out, a hand jutted into her vision, the fingers spread as if to grab her own. Looking up she met his eyes, mere inches from her own.

Cautiously, she extended her arm and placed her hand in his.

Before, when she was human, and she was normal, the feeling of his skin on hers had been electrifying. It had jolted her with such ferocity, that she could have died with pleasure. She had wanted more than anything then to kiss him, touch him and maybe even love him if it got to that point. But now… the feeling of his skin did so much more. It almost made her crazy. Her brain zeroed in on him and all other things faded away. She could only hear his breathing, his feet that shuffled on the dead leaves and hear the sound of his bones in his hand as they rubbed together to hold her own. It was all she could do to not jump his bones right then and there.

Standing on tip-toe, she hurriedly pressed her lips to his, as if it were the one thing to keep her alive. Forget death, not when she had him. He automatically wrapped his arms tightly around her, his fingers gripping her sopping wet clothes, wringing out the excess water.

Suddenly he shoved her away so that she almost fell backwards into the water.

"Wait," He said softly. She growled as she stumbled up the slight incline, annoyed with his sudden movements.

"What?" She said for the third time, now fully annoyed with his lack of explanation.

"You need to know."

"Need to know what, Malfoy?" She grumbled crossing her arms over her chest.

He blinked rapidly a few times, rubbing his thumb harshly across his bottom lip. "I can't- I… Hermione…"

Hermione's features softened. She couldn't help it; it was the effect he had on her.

"What is it?" She said softer. The wind blew changing directions so that her scent and his mingled together. Placing her forefinger and thumb over her nose, she blocked all air flow through her nostrils. But breathing through her mouth had to be almost as worse, for now not only could she keep _still_ smell him, but she could _taste_ him as well. Hurriedly, she clamped her mouth closed.

"Look, Hermione, I never really meant to turn you into a vampire, but look, there are things that you don't know-"

"OK, so maybe you didn't mean to do that, but I've read up on vampires. I know practically everything there is to know about vampires. I mean, my God, there are hundreds upon hundreds of books on the subject." Hermione crossed her arms, forgetting temporarily about his scent.

"No, Hermione, no," Draco said, taking a step forward. "You can't read this is a book, because it never has been written in a book."

"What couldn't possibly have been written in a book?" Hermione asked incredulous. Never in her years could she imagine that her dearest literary companions could fail her; it was blasphemous! Books had never failed her before!

"Things that people don't know unless you are a vampire, and there aren't a whole lot of vampires who write books, if any. Listen, something's happening to you, and to me, but mostly you. Since you are so much younger than me in your life, it could be fatal to you."

"What _could_ be fatal to me?" Hermione asked, narrowing her eyes.

Draco took a step forward. He seemed shy or unsure, mostly shy as he rubbed his thumb anxiously across his bottom lip. "Hermione, us being… _intimate_… could kill you."

"Could kill me," Hermione repeated.

"Yes," Draco said earnestly. His eyes exuded fear.

"So let's do it."

"What?!"

"Let's do it," Hermione repeated. "I thought that you _loved_ things like this! The girls at school always talked about you as if you were some type of-of… _God_ or something of that nature!"

"Christ, do you _want_ to die, Granger?" Draco hissed.

Hermione remained quiet for perhaps the first time in her life when a question was directed her way. Her eyes flitted away, focusing on anything save for the man in front of her. She knew what she would see. The face that had not aged in almost four years, the silver eyes that seemed to know everything about her with a single glance and let's not forget the very fact that he was perhaps, the most handsome from school.

"I can't believe it," Draco said sarcastically. "The girl we all thought would live to serve others."

"That actually would have most likely been my plan had I remained MORTAL!" Hermione said indignantly, his hands in balls at her side. "You think you're all high and mighty what with your big house and lands and money and- and expensive things and-"

In a matter of ways, Hermione almost expected this. She wanted more than anything for it to happen, provoked or not. She had worked to get a rise out of him. All she wanted was to die, and now, every other attempt at the act was thwarted in some way.

His lips pressed against hers with such ferocity. He gripped her hair, nearly ripping the dirty, course stands from her scalp.

And just like that, she lost control. He kissed her passionately, so much so that he lost balance and the both of them crashed through the underbrush, nearly rolling back into the pond, but they barely noticed, clawing at each other. Hermione gripped his shirt, nearly ripping it to shreds in the attempt to get it off of him as he eased the shredded silk of her own off of her shoulders.

Malfoy pulled away, trying to stop, Hermione knew, but she grabbed his hair roughly and pulled him back to her, keeping him from stopping. She almost forgot the reason why she was doing this. Almost. With every fiber of her being, she wished that it could happen at any moment, almost as much as she was starting to wish that it wouldn't just so that she could stay in this moment.

Then, just as Malfoy started to get into the flow of it, and responded to her actions, it began. A pain so immense filled the cavity of her chest. It squeezed her lungs painfully crushing them in a tight blow. Hermione's hips arched, bucking underneath Malfoy who had not realized what was happening, but took it instead as romantic response. She gasped against his lips, turning her head to the side, and Malfoy, fully succumbed to his desires trailed kisses down her neck, sucking on the crescent scar that was his bite. Her heart seized in her chest; it contracted so far she felt she could implode. Her brain pounded furiously against her skull, frighteningly fast, too fast.

"Draco…" Hermione breathed so softly that even Draco's vampire hearing couldn't pick up the frequency. It was as if she hadn't spoken at all.

Oh, her heart, her poor aching heart. Draco's bare chest rubbed against her own; she could swear she felt his heart beating impossibly fast against his skin. But, vampires' hearts didn't beat… did they? How could they? No- it was impossible! It just wasn't feasible: Never was it mentioned in any novel of their hearts beating after a transformation. Then again, it had also never said anything about a heart _not_ beating as well. And of course there was the fact that whatever was happening to her was never written in a book.

"Look at me," Draco whispered. Hermione forced her face upright. Draco's eyes were red- blood red. He pressed his lips to hers again, his eyes closing as if that was what they did on instinct. Hermione's heart seized if possible more and her entire body crumbled in: Her knees shoved Malfoy off of her and away so that they rested against her chest. Her arms ached and her brain throbbed with the effort of moving an organ that had lay dormant for the past two months. "Hermione, what-"

But there wasn't a need for him to ask what, for he knew, he knew it the moment he was shoved so forcefully away from her. And it made him far more angry than he had been in his entire life.

"You stupid bint!" Draco said, standing roughly. "I told you!"

But all he could really do was stand above her and watch. Would she live or would she die? Would she survive the aftermath of the event?

Her heart relaxed and relief flooded throughout Hermione. Her arms tingled as though they had been asleep. And then a second later, her heart contracted again, this time less painfully, but only just. It didn't last as long this time. In a matter of minutes her heart learned a pattern. Seize-relax-seize-relax. The pain began to subside, the pounding in her head lessened and the tightness in her limbs subsided.

"Hermione?" Draco whispered, knowing that she would hear him.

Hermione rolled away, unable to stop her body. All was fading. Her hunger for lustful desires. Her pain. It was all… _going away_. And then the world turned black and the only thing she could hear was the beating off her heart, pulsing strong as ever, pounding a beat in her ears.

**A/N**

**OK, so I know that it isn't like allllll other vampire stories. I want it like that. I'm not trying to follow anyone else directly by the book, but at the same time am taking things from them as well. **

**I hope y'all like it! That would really be a big payoff seeing as to how I've rewritten this chapter ten times.**

**I finished Deathly Hallows and am EXTREMELY happy that a certain someone DIDN'T die! sigh Tell me what you thought of it- and most importantly if you even want to read fanfiction anymore after knowing what's happened. **

**R&R**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: I'm bacccckkkkkk!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay! I'm finally undating **_**To Be Alone With You**_**. Now don't die of shock or anything! It's only been half a year or so! Maybe even longer… **

**Had to go back and reread all the previous chapters just to get back on track with where the story was, because, to be honest, I forgot more than half of it from when I first wrote it. **

**Enjoy!**

Chapter Thirteen: Thunderstruck

When Hermione opened her eyes the room was bathed in soft white light. She blinked, pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes and opened her eyes again. She was in a room, lying on a bed, Malfoy's bed, she assumed; when she breathed, his scent filled her nostrils. And she was alone.

There was a pain in the back of her head, right below her skull that flowed down her spine when she rolled over to get up and out of the bed. Groaning, Hermione stood on shaky legs and grasped the bed post to keep from falling over. Her breaths were ragged. Her heart convulsed softly beneath her breast. What was happening?

It stuttered and then convulsed, and Hermione bent double with the pain, her hand gripping the bed post in a vice grip.

Looking around the foreign room, Hermione noticed a set of doors and stumbled across the room to them, throwing them open and literally falling into a grand bathroom so carnivorous it was three times the size of her childhood bedroom. She lie on the floor for a period of long moments, her hand pressed to her bosom, clutching at the cloth and skin that separated her from the one thing that had yet to be answered.

Her heart spasmed and she hitched a breath, holding it for ten seconds before slowing expunging the air from her lungs, the pain slowly but surely ebbing away.

It was then that she breathed deeply and a pungent odor filled her nostrils. It smelt of dirt and body odor mixed with something akin to death. Hermione looked down at herself from where she lay sprawled on the floor and for the first time noticed how disgusting she appeared. Blood was coated on the skin of her hands turning them brown. Her clothes, what was left of them, were tattered, a mixture of blood and mud and her poor, already disastrous hair, stuck up from her head like Frankenstein's Bride, flat in the back and party in the front.

Standing more steadily on her feet, Hermione walked across the room and started a shower, setting it on the hottest setting before stripping down and practically running for the steam filled shower cubicle.

Heaven was a hot shower after two weeks in the woods. The warmth of the water soaked into her skin and permeated the darkest, coldest parts of her body. She felt she could die of this warmth that was eating her alive. Tilting her head back, she ran her fingers as best she could through her tangled locks, pulling bits of tree bark and twig from her hair. When she looked down at the shower floor it was brown with dirt and blood.

Furiously, she grabbed a washcloth and soaped it liberally before attacking her skin. She rubbed and rubbed as if the answer to all her problems lay in a clean slate. Beads of silver blood began to form on her skin as Hermione scrubbed it raw, washing down the drain and mixing with the dirt and grim she was desperate to relieve herself of.

Tears mixed with the encrusted blood on her face and Hermione brought the soiled washcloth to her face and rubbed it ferociously across her face.

"Stop, before you rip all the skin from your face," came a voice to her right and ashamed to be seen by him, she fell to the floor of the shower, hiding her face in her arms. His hands came down to her and slipped the washcloth from her fingers, dropping it absentmindedly in the corner of the shower stall. He rolled the sleeves to his shirt up and took a bottle of shampoo, lathering it into her hair before rinsing and repeating the process. She didn't deserve this sincerity.

He could associate with the feeling. He knew it quite well. To feel so distanced and dirty… To think of oneself as vile and monstrous. Yes, the feeling was quite raw upon his heart, still.

She didn't raise her head when he took the extended shower head and rinsed her hair the last time, taking the time to run a large amount of conditioner into her brown locks. Anything to help her feel better. Nor did she react when he began to wash her, scrubbing between her toes with just the same amount of efficiency if not more care than she herself had bestowed upon her body. "There is a time and a place to be cruel and neither should involve yourself, most especially your body", was what his father had preached to him when he was a child, and though he might not have agreed with everything, per se, of what his father deemed, the phrase had inadvertently, stuck.

It wasn't until he reached for her face to clean the last remaining remnants of blood and grim from her face that she whimpered and yanked back from his touch. The action caused him to fall forward into the shower stall and soak the shoulders and arms of his shirt and his head. Hermione looked at him, perplexed at what how he might react.

Smirking, he stepped back from the shower and removed the now sopping article of clothing before shedding the rest of his clothing and joined Hermione on the floor of the shower, crouching before her and reaching out to touch her. She shrieked back, covering the last cubic foot of shower stall and efficiently backed herself into a corner.

"Hermione," Draco said softly, reaching out to her again. This time, Hermione didn't pull away. She allowed him to touch her face, run his fingers over the lines of blood on her chin and lightly over her brown lips. "Don't be ashamed."

"I can't help it," Hermione replied, tears falling renewed. She looked down at the white marble tiles. "I just feel so dirty…"

"I know," Draco said, inching towards her. "I know exactly what you mean."

♥

That night was frustrating to Hermione. The inability to sleep made her irritable and put a wedge between her and Draco who had enough of a time just "resting" his eyes. It was the same to him, who had already made a routine of lying in the dark during the night; it was hard for him to understand Hermione's predicament.

"Would you quit moving already?" Draco asked as he rolled over onto his side, back to her.

"I can't," Hermione said. She lay still for a solid two minutes before growling and turning over onto her stomach. "This is so weird."

"Wasn't it strange to you out in the woods?" Draco asked exasperatedly. To him, this should have been conquered ages ago. Not carried out like some damn problem.

"Yeah, but out in the woods I was scared out of my mind and thinking only of killing things," Hermione replied saucily before she threw the covers off of her and stood from the bed. 

"Where are you going?" Draco asked lifting his head to watch her walk across the room to the door.

"I'm leaving," Hermione said, opening the door and stepping out into the darkness. Draco's eyes adjusted automatically, watching her and she looked down both corridors and then turned back to the room. "Want to come?"

He looked stunned. As though the very thought of disrupting his routine were not only unheard of, but blasphemous to even _think_ of thinking of. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times like a fish before he finally said, "Why do you want to go now? Can't this wait till morning? Or next year?"

"Funny," Hermione said as though it really weren't at all, turning on her heel and fleeing down the corridor into the depths of the house. Draco heard her soft footsteps turn the corner and then fade into nothing on the carpeted floors.

"Bloody women and their bloody nosiness," Draco said gruffly as he stood from the bed and followed after her at a slow walk. Let her have her fun before he killed the joy by forcefully dragging her back to bed. Maybe if she would lie still for twenty seconds, he'd finally give in to her charms, and give her what she'd wanted.

"Draco…." Hermione's voice echoed around him, eerily familiar to a past time, but this time eliciting emotions that were the polar opposite of that night. He quickened his pace, rounding the corner and then another blindly, following her lingering scent.

When he did find her ten minutes later she was standing stock still in the West Wing, staring at the floor with morbid fascination, head cocked to one side, mouth pursed with thought. Her fingers her clenching and unclenching in time to her heart, which with time, had gained pattern.

"What are you doing?" Draco asked, looking around the place with trepidation, ignoring the place where Circe had died.

"This is where she died isn't it?" Hermione asked, looking at the mixture of silver and browned blood on the once white carpet. "It smells like you and… flowers…"

Draco's nose twitched. He hadn't taken a single breath since entering the West Wing and had unwillingly drawn a breath when Hermione mentioned said scent.

"Like Gardenia's," Hermione elaborated, turning to him, her brow furrowed in thought. And then her face smoothed and she smirked. "That's why you were so attracted to me in school!"

"No," Draco said, turning on his heel, deciding to go back to bed. Screw giving in. She was lucky if he'd ever even kiss her let alone make love to her. "No, it's not."

"It's part of the reason, isn't it?" Hermione asked catching up to him and grabbing the sleeve of his shirt and whirling him around so they were facing one another. Her brown eyes were bright with sudden realization.

"Maybe," Draco replied shortly, looking anywhere but at her. "Why this fascination all of a sudden? I didn't think you cared so much."

"I don't," Hermione said. "At least, not about _her_. I don't know if you noticed or not, but the question was directed at _us._"

"There are a lot of reasons as to why I did the things I did," Draco said, easing her grip off of his shirt, glancing at her before he started walking down the hall.

"Aren't you going to tell me?" Hermione asked, her curiosity peaked and waiting.

"No," Draco replied turning the corner leading out of the West Wing. Hermione sighed and turned back to the blood stains. The smell was lingering, old, but strong. She wondered what Circe looked like or even if the scent of Gardenia's was her tool in attracting prey.

This couldn't be healthy, Hermione decided, as she sat on the floor in the West Wing and ran her fingers over the blood red stain that disappeared under a door. Sighing again, Hermione let her head fall back against the wall, closing her eyes, feeling more exhausted than she had in weeks.

**-x-**

Draco had developed an area of his mind that was blissfully blank where he went at night, pretending he were really asleep. It was easy to tell his brain that he was sleeping, even though the things he "dreamt" about were memories he had already experienced. He dreamt of Circe dying, of biting Hermione the first time at Hogwarts, and of kissing her in the woods. Of Hermione's almost death just a matter of days ago.

Raising his hands to his eyes, he pressed his palms against his closed lids and sighed heavily. Things were so fucked up. Nothing was going right, nothing was happening the way he felt they should have. Hermione should have willingly gave herself to him for a bite, she should have fallen in love with him first, that way, when the final act of consummation came up, it would have been easier on her, her heart wouldn't have to strain so much.

A light scent of Gardenia's filled his nostrils. He stopped breathing. This dream had plagued him for the past four years. It always started the same way with Hermione coming to him, giving herself to him in the most provocative ways and finally, _finally_, she was his. Forever.

But this was getting ridiculous. Not only was she here in this very house, but if he had a sexual dream about her, she would most likely know either by their slight connection in emotion or when she came back to bed and saw him in this state. It was embarrassment beyond words.

He took a deep breath, and the scent washed over him, filling his lungs and ensnaring his senses. His eyes flew open and there she was, standing over him, her hands on either side of his face, clutching his white pillow case in her clutches, her eyes dark with lust.

"Hermione," Draco whispered, reaching up to touch her. She recoiled slightly, so unlike his dreams, before she melted into his touch and climbed atop the bed, hips straddling him.

"Yes?" Hermione asked him, bending low to capture his lips briefly with her own. Lust washed over the both of them, fire, it felt, against their skin.

He narrowed his eyes and looked up at her face. Gripping her hair tightly in his hands he brought her close again and asked, "Is this a dream?"

Hermione smiled, a small chuckled escaping her lips. "No, it's not a dream."

She kissed him fiercely yanking his shirt up and off of him and kissing down his chest. It was almost as though neither of them could get enough of each other, and found that vying for control, even hurting one another, was just as good as the act that was soon to come.

Bites covered her shoulders, her neck and the tops of her breasts as she lay beneath him. Silver blood oozed out of each puncture mark, making her dizzy with pleasure. She moaned and pulled his face back up to hers, kissing him passionately and pulling down his pants at the same time. She broke away from his lips and began a trail of kisses down his cheek, over his jaw and across his neck, stopping at the hollow of his throat and finding a pulse, bit down, relishing in the taste of his blood flowing over her tongue and smoothly gliding down her throat. He sighed into her, cupping a breast and rubbing his sex against the opening to her own.

Forcing herself to release the bite, Hermione licked her lips and pulled him close, her hips arching to meet his own. In a moment, he slid into her and both shuddered with the sudden sensation. Waves of pleasure washed through Hermione's insides and where his hands touched her sent shock waves of pleasure across her skin. His eyes were black with lust when they met; she could only imagine hers were the same.

"Draco," She murmured and he began to move within her, the pleasure mounting until it was all she could do not to cry out in frustration. They moved against one another, each one not used to succumbing to another, and thus prolonging the inevitable. Draco kissed and sucked at her neck, searching for his first bite, finding the crescent shaped mark and biting into it, causing Hermione to gasp and arch her back. Taking his chance, he increased pace, fueled on by Hermione's deep scratches littering his back.

It was over quickly, but the sensation lingered for hours afterwards, even after each bite mark had healed and all that was left tiny beads of grey blood beaded on their skin. After that it was easy for Hermione to close her eyes and curl into a ball on her side, pretending that being asleep was actually achievable.

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**A/N: Well, there you go. I hope it's alright… and that it hasn't strayed too far from what I started with this fic. Anyways, here it is! Review please!!!! **

**Dedicated to BloodJewel for prompting me to post this!**

**--I've Got Another Confession to Make--**


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